This essay from the Los Angeles Times online, March 19, 2005.
Tim, PCCU~Taipei
Children in Class Mirror Their Parents
by Pyung Kim Conant
I'm a sixth-grade teacher at a middle school in the Los Angeles
school district. On the first day of each school year, I say to my
students: "Everyone is smart, and everyone has potential. You all
start off with an A. With your effort and hard work, you can keep
the A. But you might lose it if you don't take the work seriously.
You are responsible for your actions."
However, when the first semester grades are announced, only a few
students keep their A's. To the good students I am a "great"
teacher, and their parents thank me. However, to the students with
grades below B, I am often a mean and incapable teacher, and their
parents often blame me.
I too often hear, "Why did you give me a D? It's not fair." I
reply, "I didn't give you the D. You earned it." There are many
other student complaints: "My parents promised me $200 for good
grades. Now I won't get the money because of you." "I can't have my
birthday party because you gave me an F." "Now I can't watch TV." I
get the message: I am responsible for them losing privileges.
I don't classify my students simply by the grades they earn. Rather,
over my nine years of teaching, I have come to categorize students
into two groups: the Responsibles, those students who take
responsibility for their own actions and related consequences; and
the Irresponsibles, those who do not. Invariably, my A students are
the Responsibles.
I remember two parents who were not happy about their children's
grades. One student received a D in my math class. His mother asked
for a parent conference. She arrived with no smile at my greeting,
sat down and started talking. "My son told me that you don't explain
anything. He doesn't understand your accent. He's always turned in
his assignments, but the report card showed that he has missed
many." I asked her, "Have you checked and actually seen his
completed assignments?" Obviously, she hadn't. "I know my son very
well," she said. "My son always got an A in math when he was in
elementary school. And he got an award from the principal when he
graduated." The conference concluded with her asking, "Do you
dislike my son?"
When this mother left, I went to the counseling office and pulled
out her son's elementary school record. His standardized test score
in math was considerably below average, and there was not a single A
or B in math in his record.
While I was there, a counselor came to me and said that another
mother "had complained that your math was not challenging enough, so
she asked to change her daughter's class." In truth, the girl had
failed my class because of her second-grade math skills in a sixth-
grade pre-algebra class, so many missing assignments and low quiz
scores. The daughter, a genius only in her mother's mind, was over
her head ¡X not unchallenged ¡X in my regular math class.
"The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree." Parents need to take
responsibility and not blame others for their kids' failings. Only
then will the kids learn to take more responsibility as students.
It's "not fair" to your child to let him or her grow up to be an
Irresponsible.
*Pyung Kim Conant is a teacher at Palms Middle School.
From the Los Angeles Times
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