In the movie Moneyball, Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, says to Art Howe, the team’s coach, “If you don’t win the last game of the season, nobody gives a damn.” Coach Howe responds, “So, now it’s on me.” (Losing the final game of the American League playoffs to the Yankees). Beane says, “No, it’s on me.” And, with that exchange Billy Beane sets about to reform the way in which baseball management conceives of building a winning team. He knows that winning or losing is not on one person, but on the way that everyone conceives of their responsibility for success. Ownership, management and players began to think of baseball not as a team of “great” players but as an organization of diversely talented players assembled to increase the number of games won each season. Public education must address reform in the same way. Leadership, teachers, students and parents must re-conceive what it means to be educationally successful and then work cohesively to create new successes.
Thus far, educational journals and public media have treated educators with a “so, now it’s on you” attitude. The US Department of Education and respective state governors have issued new mandates for and assessments of educator effectiveness using the “old baseball” adage that ownership can “put the spurs” to school leadership and school leadership can “put the spurs” to employees and that vigorous spurring will improve the academic achievement of children.
This improvement model looks and acts like every reform effort since A Nation At Risk was published in 1983. It is no surprise that every reform effort since that landmark publication has done little but spawn a next reform effort. Reformers have manipulated what happens in the classroom by looking for a new breed of teachers, a new slant on curriculum, and a new trend in teaching. It is time to stop looking for educational success in the singular venue of the classroom and using a new view of how each of the relevant players in public education can work in the aggregate to create more educational wins.
Today, we are looking at parents as players.
First, parents like Harriet Nelson, Donna Read, and Mrs. Cunningham are no more. When our grandparents went to school, the majority of children were sent to school by homemaking mothers who fed them breakfast, prepared their school clothes, packed their lunches, saw them out the door and seemingly waited at the door until their children returned home from school. Once back at home, moms watched over their children at play, prepared their supper, assisted with their homework and tucked them into bed. This parenting model happens so infrequently today that it is the exception and we must accept a new rule for describing the parent as an educational player.
The majority of children today are raised by working parents. The majority of moms and dads are fully engaged in the struggle of economic survival or in the daily turmoil of their occupations. Work to earn money is the full-time, every day focus of most parents.
A growing minority of children live with a single parent of a mixed family. The majority of families does not eat meals together, go to church together or sit together in the evening to talk about “what did you do today.” A majority of children do their homework, if they do it, in their bedrooms or a room away from their parents’ supervision. A majority of children engage with electronic media – social media, video entertainment, games, television – as their primary activity at home. Most parents find reassurance that a child engaged thusly is not a parenting problem at the moment.
Most high school aged children fit into these two categories. Children have found their niche in school and/or their positive community activities and find personal worth in these, or, due to a lack of success in school or community activities have become externally apathetic and have quit trying to succeed in traditional youth activities. The former are ready for parent engagement; the latter are not.
All of that said, when it comes to educating their children, especially elementary and middle school age children, parents “it is on you, also.” Teachers, curriculum, and teaching cannot fill in the gap of a child’s parent. These are essential things parents need to do as part of a reformed team committed to building educational wins.
Make learning matter. When I have asked children across K – 12 how often their parents talk with them about what they learned at school “today,” they typically cannot remember the day and they say “now and then.” Talking about your child’s most important childhood enterprise is not lip service; it is a daily testimonial of parental interest in what a child learns. Initiate talk about what your child learned today. Don’t stop with a kid’s time-tested first response of “Nothing. We didn’t do ‘nothing’ at school today.” If you know what your child learned yesterday, it is easy to initiate talk about what they learned today. If you don’t know what your child learned at school yesterday, start with today and ask again tomorrow.
Talk about the specifics of what your child has learned today and do it every day. You are tired from a day’s work. No one disagrees. But a day without positive talk about learning from a parent at home builds another thin layer on the callous of disinterest. When a child think’s her parent is not interested, it is hard for her to be interested.
Attribute learning successes to your child’s work at learning. Success begets success but only if the successful child believes that she has been successful, that current success is the result of what she has done, and that she possesses what is necessary for success again in the future. No cheerleader in a child’s life is more important than a child’s parent. No one can make a child feel more capable or more incapable than a parent. So, make your child understand that current success is due to what your child has done to be successful and that they can be even more successful in the future by continuing to work for their success.
Be your child’s cheerleader for success every day. Know your child’s aspirations and how she can make dreams come true. We all had dreams which did not transpire; but one or two did. When we can help a child make one of her dreams come true, we are paying success forward to future generations.
Make continuing education matter. In the last century, a college education was at the pinnacle of each family’s American dream for their children. Today, the economics of a college education make a baccalaureate more and more difficult to achieve. However, today there is much more to education than a baccalaureate degree. Education remains the best predictor of economic mobility and there are many flavors of education, especially technical and career specific education. A technical or career specific education is economically feasible for most. Further, a child must understand that education is a continuing life activity for tomorrow’s adults. Skill sets are changing too rapidly for any person to work a full fifty years based on the skills they learned before they were twenty years old. Careers will evolve and skill sets will change. Education is the constant tool for preparing a person for what comes next.
Assure that your child understands that constant learning is essential for their successful adult life. Education is not a school. It is not a teacher. Education is a personal investment in oneself.
Don’t get your pants in a bunch because someone is telling you how to be an educational parent to your child. No parent held his or her first child and said “I know all there is to know about parenting.” No parent said at her child’s fifth birthday party, “I know all there is to know about your sixth year.” We all need to hear lessons that we can use. I can give testimony to this truth every day.
This blog is not prescribing the education your child needs. Public education, traditional, charter or voucher. Private or parochial education. Alternative education. Home schooling. It doesn’t matter, as long as you are an educational parent who promotes learning, the attribution of success to personal effort, and the need for continuing education.
Educational success is “on” and “because of” educational parents.