The Catholic Cricket

What’s wrong with education? I can give you a one word answer: Parents.

Yes, parents.

Oh, one could make an argument about bad teachers, unions, excessive administrative overhead, wastefulness, and all the rest, and some of the blame does lie there.  But the major fault lies with parents.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains it well (imagine that), in the very first statement under the heading “The duties of parents”:

The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. “The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.” The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable. (CCC2221)

The part in quotes comes from the Vatican II document Gravissimum educationis, which makes it even clearer:

Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators

As parents, we must educate our children. And whether we intend it or not, our children learn from us…their primary educators.

But what does it really mean, and how does this tie in with schools?

Before I get back to that, a side note.  Heather and I teach a class for engaged couples about Conjugal Love and Natural Family Planning.  In the first half of the class we go over what the couple is promising by getting married in the Church (the Church’s expectations of their behavior).  One of the three questions asked of the couple during the Rite of Marriage is “Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”  We make sure in our class to point out that, in order to “bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church”, we as parents need to know the law and we need to live the law.

Any child psychologist will tell you that a big way children learn is through modeled behavior. What they see in front of them greatly influences how they behave.  If dad is rude to mom and shows her no respect, most likely so will their children.  That also comes up in our class, when we discuss Family of Origin.

Now, back to the main topic.  Children can see the level of importance parents place on the education they are receiving.  If a parent is involved (clearly showing a high level of importance for education), the child will see it.  If a parent is disdainful of the education (or any aspect of it…it transfers from one thing to the other), the child will see that.  And what the child sees, he will model.

Why do private schools and charter schools do a better job than public schools?  It’s clearly not money.  Many failing public schools get as much per pupil as private schools.  It’s not quality of teachers, as there are many great teachers in public schools, and private schools have their share of bad teachers.  It’s not even the “exclusivity” that private schools get to practice, pick and choosing the cream-of-the-crop students from wealthy families that can afford the school, no matter what teachers’ unions want you to believe.  Do you really think that a private school is going to turn down someone willing to pay the cost of tuition?  Or that children of people able to afford said tuition are somehow smarter?

No, the answer is parental involvement, and how they’re involved.  Private and charter schools can, and usually do, expect/demand/require parental participation in the school.  Homeschooling is, of course, all on the parent (Heather can’t be more involved with the kids’ education…she’s the primary educator, even in the general and not Catechetical understanding of the phrase).

I don’t envy public school teachers.  They deal with a mixture of involved parents, antagonistic parents, and completely indifferent parents.  The involved parents are a blessing.  The indifferent parents just don’t care…they basically abdicate the responsibility of educating the children to the teachers.

The worst are the antagonistic parents.  Because of them, teacher get their hands tied by administrators who are listening to lawyers who are trying to protect the schools from stupid lawsuits like “Mr. Smith flunked my precious daughter and now she hasn’t eaten in weeks because of the emotional trauma”.  Some parents will call and dispute their kids’ grades.  Or curse out a teacher and issue a formal complaint.

And now this is happening in colleges.  Parents calling the dean to complain?  What the…?

This kind of behavior is observed by the child (or young adult, or adult-who-hasn’t-grown-up-yet).  What does Sally learn in 1st grade if mommy or daddy gets her grade changed, while yelling at the principal that Mrs. Johnson is a horrible teacher?  She certainly doesn’t learn to respect her teacher.

Wow, I started this almost a year ago (mid-March), and never posted it.  I think I intended to go back and edit it. I’m going to post it now, without change, because on rereading it I’m happy with what it says.