Do parents play a role in the educational process? Absolutely. Unfortunately, we tend to spend more time trying to figure out who is to blame for the state of the current educational system than we actually spend thinking about education. It’s time to get away from the blame and start looking at how to actually connect things together.
But the question still lingers in the background, doesn’t it? Just who gets to demand higher educational standards. The truth might surprise you. You see, all of us have the right to demand better standards, and all of us should be talking about this.
Parents should care about better standards because it can lead to students getting a more well rounded education, which is a key job skill now. Employers want to hire people that a greater well of knowledge to tap into from the beginning.
Students should care about better standards so that their education means something. This is even more the case for our student friends across the pond, who often go into debt in order to get a college education. Shouldn’t you care about the overall quality of the school that you attend? If everyone abandons standards, it means that employees devalue your entire education, making it a waste of time if you’re going to school in order to improve your career.
It’s time to really think in a different way about standards. We need to see standards as guidelines for success, rather than limitations that keep us from reaching our peak potential. It’s high time that we stand for something instead of just assuming that we can’t get anywhere fast.
We all have a role to play here. Parents need to stress the importance of learning, not just education. In other words, we can’t just send our children to school and consider that “good enough”. We need to make sure that they understand exactly what a lifetime pursuit of learning and excellence brings them.
As educators, we have to hold each other accountable, even when that means confronting someone that is nice in every other aspect. If they aren’t giving the students what they need, that needs to be brought up through the appropriate channels. When we fail to call out behavior and hold people accountable, we basically send the message that the entire system doesn’t work. When people see that we’re not brave enough to call out people that aren’t performing, they lose faith in education. That is definitely not what we’re after here.
Society as a whole is depending a great deal on education, so we need to be willing to propose new solutions to a long time problem. That’s how everything grows.