Letter: Parents are teachers first

Recently in The Huffington Post, Tim Elmore reported that, 'According to Joan McVittie, president of the Association of School and College Leaders, ‘to instill values and responsibility' in high school students now has to be a top priority. The Harvard Graduate School of Education shared a recent poll indicating that 70 percent of public school parents want schools to teach ‘strict standards of right and wrong,' and 85 percent want schools to teach values.” He used this as a launchpad for an article 'Teachers: Your Job Just Got More Important.”

Do teachers have to work harder because parents have fallen down on their job? When did teachers begin taking on the parent's role? Or is teaching morality and values done in the process of building relationships with students? Educators know that students have a sense of what respectful and responsible behavior looks like and know that the class will be a yearlong program in practicing and getting better and better at taking responsibility and being respectful of others. What's all the trash talk about how teachers have one more thing to do that they never had to do before? 'Whoever entertains that notion doesn't understand education, and whoever talks that way is perpetuating an antiquated notion of schooling that never was educational.”

It is time to stop blaming teachers for the students' downfall. It should not be up to the teachers to instill morals into your children. This is your responsibility parents and it is time to rise to the challenge.

Felicia Brown

Toddville