In the Land of Teachers

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.    - Robert Frost

The hardest issues I have to work with are those that involve school-parent conflicts.  Too often, these turn out to be driven by misunderstanding, strong emotions, poor communications, and the interaction between different cultures – that of the educational world, and that of the world of special needs families. 

There are times when the disagreements are based on valid programmatic or other concerns.  Those conflicts, if well managed by both sides, can often be beneficial in that they provide a healthy discourse of ideas and concerns, and both sides are open to considering and evaluating the ideas of all parties.  In these cases, a positive result can and often does come out of the disagreement and the parties involved can continue to work together. 

Unfortunately, too often, the optimal process does not happen.  Something short circuits this process, and things become personal, feelings get hurt, and sometimes grudges get started, and the problem-solving process falls apart.  Obviously, this is not good.  When I have run into these situations, usually no party is completely blameless.  One side may be more blameless than the other, but usually, there are enough issues and missed opportunities to spread around, some innocuous and some not. 

Maybe if we take a quick look at both sides, some of you who are in these situations may understand your opposite a little better, and in doing so, may help to improve or prevent some of these conflicts…. So, let’s start by taking a look at the land of teachers and what parents need to understand about their world.

First and foremost, teachers do not get into teaching because they want to get rich.  Almost every teacher I know of has gone into education because they truly enjoy working with children.  And those that go into special education seem to have an additional calling to try and help those who often have the greatest needs.  That should be something that all parents take to heart and should remember.  The kids are NOT widgets on an assembly line, but important individuals that a teacher is trying to figure out how to best educate.

Second, teachers, no matter how good and no matter how caring, are constrained by the nature of education in what they can do.  Remember, teachers are there to educate your child.  Much of what they can and cannot do is dictated by federal law, state statute, state policy, and local policies and procedures.  These constraints are there for many reasons – to ensure consistency, to protect your child, to protect the teacher, to make sure your child is getting an appropriate education, etc.  But, schools cannot be everything.  They are not health care facilities or babysitting services or substitute parents.  They exist to do what they can to educate your child.  Teachers have to live in this world, and no matter how good a teacher is, must live by the rules of that world.

Third, teachers get frustrated, too.  Why?  They get frustrated for many reasons.  For many, the workload has grown exponentially, taking time away from the reason they went into teaching – that of working with children.  While funding for education continues to be reduced, paradoxically, regulations, mandates, and reporting requirements have been heaped upon teachers.  Much of this is not coming from your local district professionals, but from state and federal legislation – from many people who really have little to no knowledge of what it actually means to be a teacher.  Often, these mandates, which are meant to help, actually have a negative impact by taking even more time away from direct education, helping to drive frustration

Also, as already noted, children are not widgets.  Each child is unique (note – that is why the ‘I’ in IEP stands for Individualized), and as a result, there is no one size fits all.  Often for children with special needs, if there is more than one disability, problem solving for education is often like peeling an onion.  Every layer you reveal has a surprise, and there is always another layer beneath it.  The result is trying to resolve how to filter through all the different impacting factors of a disability and come up with an appropriate solution to a child’s needs.  I talk to teachers (and am married to one) who brings their work home every night and on weekends, trying to solve how to best reach and help a child with complex issues.  These teachers truly feel for each of these kids and for their families.  Take a look at the burnout rate for staff sometimes.  It takes a toll.  But it is because these people truly care about their students.

Fourth, teachers want children to succeed.  Nothing pleases teachers more than seeing their students succeed.  For those in the special education programs, this is especially true.  They understand how hard these children have to work, and how hard the families have to work.  They want good things for these kids and for these families.  They know how important it is for the long term success of their students. 

So, parents, please think about some of this next time a disagreement starts to arise.  Think about the world that these teachers and educators live in professionally.  It is so easy to let frustration and emotion rule ourselves as parents when something involves our children and education.  Take an extra breath.  Think twice.  It is ok to disagree and to have differing ideas.  Have that discussion.  Talk it through, work together, collaborate, and be open to ideas (on both sides).  But be careful you don’t let that emotion turn something into a personal, antagonistic dispute.  It is hard, but take care, take a breath, and think about how you want to respond.  Will it help the situation or make it worse?

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- Aristotle