"Orlando, Florida (CNN) -- If an elementary school teacher graded you on your involvement in your child's education, what kind of a grade would you get?
Should your kid's first-grade teacher be grading you in the first place? If Florida state Rep. Kelli Stargel's bill becomes law, public school teachers will be required to grade the parents of students in kindergarten through the third grade."
http://www.psychologicalscience.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&blog_id=19
How does this relate to the ABCs of behavior?
How does this relate to punishment?
How does this relate to the the idea of taking away the parent's driver's license some of you commented on before?
(http://www.psychologicalscience.com/bmod/2011/01/revoking-driving-rights-for-parents-of-truent-kids.html)
This relates to the ABC's of behavior because depending on the parent's and child's situation at home or at school will influence their behaviors. The consequence to this is whether or not the parent/student receives a good grade or not. The grading to the parent is based on three things. 1. That the student shows up on time for school ready to learn, and well rested. 2. That the student has done his or her homework and/or is prepared for a test. 3. There should be regular communication between teacher and parent. Here is my problem with this. Firstly, I do not think that the teacher has the right to judge someones parenting. Every parent has a different way at parenting their child and for another person to grade them on their parenting is just not right in my mind. Secondly, the common word in two of these three rules is the word "student". Yes I realize that the parenting grading would only go through the 3rd grade. Ultimately it is the student's responsibility that they are ready to learn that day, that they are well rested, and that they have their homework done or are ready for the test the next day. One would argue that the child is too young to take on this much responsibility. I am not saying that they parent should just tell the child to "have at it", but what I am saying is that the parent is there to offer guidance and support to the student when they ask for it. Yeah my parents helped me when I asked for it when I was working on my homework, yeah I had a bedtime when I was that young, and yeah my parents took me to school when I was that young also. But it was my responsibility to get my homework done, it was my responsibility to go to bed, yes I was told it was time to go to bed, but the actual act of going to sleep was my responsibility. It is the teacher's responsibility to teach the student the material they need to be able to do their homework at home. There are certain things that happen in people's lives that prevent a parent to getting their child to school on time. Sometimes Mommy and Daddy may not have time or be able to help their child with their homework. Unfortunately there are households in this country where the parent's do not care about their child's education and therefore the child is forced to learn responsibility on their own. It is unfair for a teacher to grade the parent on their "parenting skills". If the parent would get a bad grade, it is insulting to them and would only cause tension between the parent and teacher, therefore rule number 3 would decrease or be gone all together. Besides what is the consequence to getting a bad grade as a parent besides a decrease in self esteem as a parent. Especially for a younger parent, which may lead to more serious issues, such as child abuse. Maybe I am going a bit far with that one, but it is a possibility.
I think both this idea and the driving rights idea are, frankly, horrible. Yes, the environment produced by parents and teachers can elicit particular behaviors like working on homework or paying attention and understanding class, but there is so much more to it than that. Honestly, I'd place the teacher more at blame if a child is not learning the material. Although parents should want to help their children learn and succeed, that is technically the teacher's job. The teacher should be the one providing the tools to homework completion and provide an environment conducive to learning. What happens at home can be largely out of the control of even the parents.
I think this fits into the ABCs of behavior very well. The desired behaviors (or undesired behaviors, in the case of not completing the homework, not being ready to learn, etc) can come about from a variety of antecedents. A child with incomplete homework might not understand the material, or they might now have a home environment that allows for them to get schoolwork done, just to name a couple. The consequences of the behaviors might not really be reinforcing, or punishing, the behaviors. Say a child does get the homework done. The teacher doesn't say "good job", instead they just take the homework and move on with the collection. The student gets no attention, no praise, nothing. So why do the homework? Then the teacher comes to a child who hasn't finished the homework. The important "why?" question is not asked, unless in a rhetorical way meant to embarrass the child into finishing the homework next time. The child is given significantly more attention than any other children in the classroom, and they may get sent out of the room to sit in the hallway and entertain themselves. Most likely they will have to stay and get special attention from the teacher during recess, most likely help completing the homework. So it gets done, eventually. And with all the one-on-one help they need.
And a parent is supposed to compete with that? Let's be honest, parents don't always have time to sit down with their kids and work through every homework assignment. There is dinner to be cooked, laundry to be done, their own work to worry about, and probably a bath for the child in there somewhere. So how does a child get the extra help he or she may need on the homework? Just don't do it. The teacher will walk then through it later. I know, I worked as a T.A. for a few first grade classrooms. Those kids knew how to get their work done, but they'd just never do it. Some of the teachers would spoon-feed the answers to the kids, who then suffered poor test grades because they never learned from the homework. But yes, let's blame the parents for that one...
And I completely agree with the end of your post, bohlkec. I plan on going into school psychology, and one of the main things I am told by the school psychologists I talk to is to never blame the parent. Even if they are doing something wrong, present it in a constructive manner. Blaming the parent can indeed lead to feelings of failure in themselves, or they project that blame onto their children and resent them for making the parent look bad. Either way, it ends up making problems worse.
I just wanted to quickly comment about the grading the parents who have children in grades k-3. Personally this is wrong because I raised my little sister who is now 7 and my parents were never around to help her. Ya they were every now and then but for the most part it was a child raising a child. My parents would of failed due to them being too busy or just expecting me to take care of her. This world has changed and I realize to hold parents accountable for their children. But may children are able to do homework and they know what to do but they are just too lazy. It is not the parents fault that their child is lazy. yes they should be talked to about their childrens school habits but it should not be their fault completely. My little siter knows what her homework is and when it is due. whether she does it or not well that is her choice. It is teaching her to be responciable and sometimes with the assistance of an adult.
I agree that this idea is wrong and that parents shouldn't be graded because every home has different expectations and ways of doing things. However, chidlren in grades k-3 should have a little more help from there parents. I don't think it matters how busy the parents are, I think they should at least be able to set aside a time for the kid to do their homework, not just leave it up to them.
I think this is exactly what conferences are for. The teachers notice the students strengths and weaknesses, and talk to the parents about it. If they are not getting their homework done on time or done right, then the teacher can mention it to the parents to keep a better eye on them.
You are right about raising your children to be responsible, however, a child in first grade is still a child. I don't think it would take much time for a parent to just say, "go do your homework before you play any video games". The parents can go right back to whatever they were doing.
I feel that this law is almost just as bad as the driver's license one. I don't feel that parents should be punished that harshly for their child's behavior. Even though this doesn't have as bad as a punishment as the driver's license one, it still can make parent's life hard. If parents get a bad grade from teachers they may consider themselves as horrible parents and think they are hopeless and let their parenting slide more. I feel that this grading thing will just make parents feel worse about themselves. Parents have enough to do during the day and if they get bad grades from a teacher they may feel like they need to take time away from other things to work on the parenting. This could just cause more problems in the family atmosphere because things are getting done now or things have changed and caused things to get out of control.
I feel that this has to deal with the ABC's of behavior because the antecedent is a big determent of the behavior. The reward or punishment in this case would be the grade, it could be either or the other. The behavior of whether the child did the homework or did good on the test depends on many antecedents. There are so many antecedents that can relate to this case. The family environments and situations are probably the largest and the biggest determent of the behaviors. Kids can come from many different environments and in today society many parents have to work longer hours and two jobs to help make ends meat to provide for the family, so they may not have time to help with the student's work as much. That is why I don't feel this is the correct way to go about this thing. Plus I feel that school was created to help take that learning responsibility a bit off the parents shoulder. Schools just have better supplies and skills to rather than parents to help children learn more and better.
If anything, parents should be grading teachers!
A kid who is doing fantastic may not have as involved parents, same a kid who is doing poorly may have parents who are involved and do care. I would like to know the baseline they are starting from and what exact target behaviors they are going to use to measure the involvment of the parents. Either way I think it is ridiculous. Since there are so many variables at work here it can change the ABC's drastically, depending on what the target behaviors are and what consequences will be elicited.
Again, since I do not know how a teacher could measure a parents involvment(do they observe them at home? Ask the kids questions in regards to their parents involvment?)I believe that the parent here will be the one being punished for really the childs intellegence or the lack of ability of the teacher to do their job. Parents, I assume, don't want to be graded, so this is a punishment. We know punishment doesn't increase a behavior(involved in kids studies), it decreases them, so I am not so sure this is useful.
Just like the article about truent kids, I don't working well.
I actually don't think it's that bad of an idea. Mainly because if the parent isn't doing their job and reinforcing the child for doing their homework/helping them, the child may not do as well as the child whose parents do help them. Another thing is that children mostly follow by example, and if the parent doesn't help them with school work nor shows any interest in it, it could seriously hinder their learning.
However, I don't think that the parents should acually be punished for their behavior, or lack their of. If the teacher says that they're not doing a good job helping their child with their homework, the teacher may not realize that the parents may have intense working hours that are needed in order to keep their family surviving. I guess when it comes down to it it's all about priorities.
This relates to punishment because it's taking something away. Although it may not be physically taking something away, it is taking away the parents right to raising their child the best way they can.
Again, I don't agree with punishing parents by taking away their drivers license if their children don't get good grades. I also don't agree that parents should be graded by a professor with a PH.D let alone a first grade teacher. I do admit there are many parents who do not take responsibilty for their children but you can't punish every parent for what there children decide to do. I think this whole idea would create aversive situations. Parents would get angry because they are being criticized and teachers would probably gain a huge ego. Whose to say a first grade teacher is a better parent than any of his or her students parents. Or a parent at all. How can you expect someone who has a degree like nearly everyone else to coach people on parenting, especially if that teacher doesn't even have kids. Bad parenting is not going to get better based on what a teacher has to say, it would take a lot more than that, and in a way punish good parents for doing there best.
There are many ways to look at this in the ABC's of behavior perspective.
The antecedent could be the law being enforced, behavior is parents participating more in their child's acedemics. The consequence could be kids doing better in school.
When you look at that abc example, it doesn't sound like a bad idea, but I think it is a horrible idea. Where is the structure? How would the teachers grade the parents? Is there a certain set of questions? A grading scale? How often would they meet? What if the parents couldn't schedule the meetings in there busy schedule? If they fail what happens and how can you enforce it?
As you can see I have a lot of questions but I still don't agree with the whole idea!!!
this could relate to the ABCs in that A would be a child being in school, B would be the parents not teaching their children properly outside of school, The teacher would apply positive punishment by grading them badly and as a consequence (hopefully) the parent would spend more time trying to teach the children properly.
I don't necessarily agree with this whole thing because I don't think it's the teacher's place to judge anybody unless the child is obviously being abused or neglected in some ways.
As a future teacher I understand the possible frustration with a student not attending school, especially at a younger age when the parent is responsible for getting the child up for school and making sure the child is there on time. I do however not feel this is appropriate or worth the time it would take. The general idea is however not so bad. The idea of giving them a grade could possibly make the parents more interested in their child’s schoolwork. They might not want to face the idea of being punished with a negative grade and coming across as being a bad parent. At this age parents do need to be held responsible for there children missing school, and should be punished in others ways such as child welfare services. The idea of taking away a drivers license is a not a wise idea to me because of other implications is carries, such as not being able to work or if any need for transportation would arise.
I personally don't think that this would do any good. I think the teacher's have more of an influence on how the child does. If the teachers do not care, then the child probably will not care as much. This could apply to the ABCs of behavior. The antecedent could be the child in school, the behavior would then be putting the law into place, and the consequence would then be the child performing better in school given that the parents do what they are supposed to do.
I agree that the teachers have more influence on how the child does because not every household is the same. Although as an outsider it may appear that a parent does not have complete responsibility or control with their children, there can always be a story behind it. Teachers do not have a right to judge parents or grade them unless they are given legitimate reasons to do so.
I don't think that parents should be graded. Every parent has a different way of teaching and raising their child. There is no right or wrong way because we are all brought up under different standards and morals. Some parents choose to use punishment as their main discipline and some choose reinforcement. Just because you do not see eye to eyes, doesn't mean you have the right to grade them. If anything, the parent should grade the teacher on how well he/she believes the child's overall experience is.