Parent Perspective on Education

At the home of two young girls, one nine and one twelve, a rift between a parent and her children's teachers is starting to grow. One daughter (12) is a straight-A student. She's a prideful child, and one that has coasted through her education with her sharp intellect and smart people skills.

The other is an intelligent underperformer. She's "young for her age" and likes to goof around. You can tell the ability is there in theory, because she has a knack for wordplay and an awareness of the world that children her age rarely have, but the achievement is sorely lacking.

One would think that the parent would be proud of the twelve year old for her accomplishments. But the 12 year old is showing some very disturbing trends: Her essay drafts have been nothing short of a disaster, with terrible use of the English language and little idea with how to construct a working thesis. Even for a twelve year old, these are bad papers.

She appears to consistently miss questions on her homework assignments, and when she does get them wrong she appears to have no idea how to find the correct solution, indicating that while she's still following along in class, she's far from fully understanding the material. Despite these issues, she is still receiving straight-A's. This has caused her to develop arrogance about her own abilities, and makes her see little reason to change her study habits.

Meanwhile, the nine year old is a frustrating case. She has none of the arrogance, but also none of the passion for success. She has no interest in her education and no remorse or regret when she does poorly on an exam or paper.

Her spelling hasn't improved, nor has her math skills, and regardless of her final grade (whether it's an A or a D), she doesn’t seem to care about achievement in the slightest. The parent is frustrated. She's tried to instill a hard working attitude into both of her girls, and she ensures they have completed their homework and focus on their schoolwork before enjoying any fun activities.

She gives them praise when they succeed and a light admonishment when they fail. She reminds them that it's not about the grades, but about trying your hardest, and she follows any advice she reads from parenting guides on how to keep children interested in their schoolwork. Despite all those problems, both children are struggling in their own way, and those struggles may cause them additional problems as they move up the school ladder.

At some point, teachers need to be more aware of these types of struggles, because there is a chance that their teaching methods play a role in the development of these problems. This parent has a concern – that her 12 year old is somehow being graded better than she should be and that the nine year old isn't growing interested in the material – and these concerns may be shared by other parents. It's always possible that the children act this way because of parenting, or because it's simply who they are.

Not every child is going to succeed, and not every behavior or stance the child displays is the result of their education. But it also could be. If these problems are affecting multiple students, it may indicate that there is a problem with the teaching style – or the teachers themselves.

Right now, the parent in this story is alone in their concerns. She's not there to grade the papers of her 12 year old (and certainly she wouldn't want to change her child's grade to something worse) nor is she there to see how interested her child appears in class. All she knows is that one child's good grades are actually hurting her education by being handed out too easily, while the other doesn't appear to care about education at all.

That is where a survey of parents at your institution could improve the quality of the child's education dramatically. Childhood education doesn't just take place in the classroom. Often you can see the effects of that education in the child's home life as well.

But teachers aren't in that child's home life. They don't know how the child is working through problems, nor do they know how the child interacts with their parents with regard to that education. Crafting a survey to see how the parent see their child's enthusiasm, abilities, support, etc., can play a big role in how well your school manages to retain students and improve their progress through your school system.

Information really is power, and if you want to ensure that your institution is providing students with exactly what they need to grow and improve, these types of research studies will help.