Parents Teachers Association

 We had parent teachers association(PTA) in school. Its goal was to help students . Presence of parents in the meeting helped teachers in solving students personal problems.

As a parent and a teacher, we teachers were sometimes surprised at how many parents seem to take little to no interest in what or how their kids are doing in school, as well as how many parents push their children towards independence too early, for the sake of their own convenience.

We, teachers, were clear that if one's child is under age 10, and if parents can’t name a single thing their child learned in school this month, parents are not doing a good job as parents. We all teachers agreed that it's okay if parents are not able to help kids with their homework (although it would be nice), but at least ask their child what they’re doing in school.

When students are ages 11–14. The older ones are pretty independent, but the younger ones still need a lot of guidance. Yet I’ve had 11-year-old students whose parents just didn’t seem to care what their kid was doing in school. Emails to the parents would be read but not responded to. Phone calls would go unreturned. Parents looked bored in PTA, or never looked up from their phones in the PTA, or just never came to the PTA.

   We teachers sometimes get annoyed with some children. We were consistently late, hadn’t eaten, were unprepared, and looked like we just rolled out of bed. The kids weren’t home alone. The parents were there. Parents thought their kid was independent enough to get themselves ready and to school consistently every morning.

Many times, we teachers had to buy lunches for students who had none. When teachers talked to the parents about it during PTA, some parents just said that the child was responsible for packing their own lunch every day. That’s fine… there’s nothing wrong with a kid that age being responsible… but we teachers used to request, please parents supervise your kid to make sure it’s done right.

We teachers used to feel sad for kids and always requested parents that kids are a long-term commitment, but many parents will not understand the same. We were fortunate that there were many good teachers in school. We collectively helped many students, and we teachers found that students improved a lot.

The moral of the story is that we, as parents, should help our kids as much as required. But parents must learn with the help of a teacher, where to draw the line that the parent is not required to help, and how much help the kid requires. When the cooperation of parents is extended to the teacher, it will be good for the teacher, parents and students. That will be win win-win-win situation for parents, teachers and students.

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Sukarma Thareja

Alumnus IITK