Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy "your Mom is not in charge of your education"

Well said. And yet there seems to be a change occurring to make parents agents of the state, evaluated by and answerable to government schools, regarding the child's education. The larger the proportion of disengaged parents who are not supporting their child's education, the wider the door is opened for government schools to oversee and monitor parenting. Many districts offer parenting seminars and schools have the ability to monitor inside the home via school laptop video cam and microphone.

Seemingly unrelated policies and practices are put in place, akin to lining up a row of dominoes. Then one small change occurs (similar to tapping the first domino) and far-reaching change takes place very rapidly (similar to the chain of motion as each domino falls and taps down the next). This analogy is not original, it is called the domino effect.

It is my understanding that maintaining any semblance of parental authority into the future, parents need to keep an eye on legislation, and be willing to contact their State and Federal representatives. Ensuring and expanding parental rights, including the right to home school, is key. Once that is gone, parents are indeed agents of the state.

Stepping off my soapbox...

Oh, moms are in charge of children's education. To start with, they (and the dads, hopefully) get to decide which school (and in some cases, which teachers) their children go to.

Is this one episode of a long story between the family and the teacher? If this is just an isolated event, I might let it go but from now on I'd watch this teacher very carefully.

Policies have changed rapidly over time, from children assigned to local neighborhood schools, to forced bussing, to the open enrollment many families enjoy today, and the creation of charter schools. All these changes occurred legislatively. Laws are passed, and with the stroke of a pen, the future changes.

Parents who may wish to remain in charge of their child's education going on into the future may be wise to read the websites of their legislators, sign up for their newsletters, and contact them about maintaining parental rights and homeschool rights. Freedoms are lost daily. We, the people, are surrendering them... oftentimes unknowingly.

Hmm ... The teacher is wrong. My DS sometimes misunderstands concepts taught in school (I hope so, because it is hard to imagine teachers botching up historical facts in a good school), mispronounces words etc. He argues with me when I correct him - he tells me that his teacher is in charge of his education. I correct him and say that ultimately, the teacher is answerable to me if my son learned something wrongly. And I am the boss - because I hired the school to educate my son and if things are taught in an unsatisfactory manner, I as the person "in charge" will have to take it up with them or find another school to meet my child's needs.
Let your son understand that ultimately, you as the parent is in charge of his education. Beyond that, there is no need to "deal" with the teacher for this incident, in my opinion.

I would take a different approach and suggest to your son that ultimately HE is in charge of his learning as he is in charge of his own body and eventually his own life. It is how he chooses to do things that will determine his future.

I would suggest that you (parent) and the teachers and school are there to partner with him to help him fulfill his potential and reach his self-appointed goals.

If this means he needs to allow the teacher to assist him then he needs to understand her role in the equation. If this means he needs to come to you with concerns or questions about his educational path then this means you and he can work together to help him be on the path he needs to be on to feel content, engaged and stretched.

Show him the bigger picture of education and it may enlighten your understanding of what he is experiencing in this (and other situations).

Off the bat this comment does sound like a power struggle - my initial response was extreme and out of kilter to be honest and I had to walk away, think about it and then come back to answer.

Well said.

Thanks everyone. I did not contact the teacher right away. The next time I saw the teacher, we chatted. SHE brought up this incident and said something to the effect, "just so you know - we're in charge here - you're not." I wasn't surprised. They school is pretty upset about the partial homeschooling. Mainly they are concerned that others will find out about our arrangement and there will be a mass exodus of families who partially homeschool. (Lots of families know about our arrangement and as far as I know, no one else is interested in doing what we're doing.)

Anyway, a couple of days later I sent an email to the teacher and cc'ed the principal. I just thanked her for her concern about DS. I let her know that we have taught DS that he is ultimately in charge of his learning in the moment. Also, there are subjects that we teach at home and subjects that are taught at school. We follow and support the teacher's rules for a particular class at school and reinforce that with DS. (And this is true.) I asked her politely, to contact us directly if she has any issues that she would like to discuss. Ultimately, DS was kind of disturbed by the teacher's statement and conveyed that to me. I let her know that DS was upset about it and asked that we work together to be sure that this child is surrounded by a team of adults who care for him.

It's not a great situation. I continue to monitor DS to see how he is doing in her class.

Whoaaa...I don't know but it usually looks to me like it is out of necessity most times not for an ego boost!

I would also be interested to hear the supporting arguments behind this premise. I'm also eager to hear the research that has led to a unified view of homeschooling motivations, given the known uniqueness of children and families in the gifted set.

I partial homeschool my 3 kids, and have done since my eldest (13, tenth grade) was in preschool. TBH, I would rather not have to do this, but have no choice.

Here are just two reasons:

1. Most of my kids' math teachers don't understand math. Those that did were wonderful, and there was no math-homeschooling when they were teaching my kids (3 teachers spread across 3 kids since 2004).

This year, DD's math teacher marked her wrong because she wrote that the prime factors of 28 were 7*2*2. The "correct" answer was 2*2*7. So much for the commutative property. I could go on (and on) about this teacher's mistaken ideas about math, and did in another thread, but this one example should be enough for anyone who understands maths to be face-palming. But when I teach my kids about number lines and relationships between the standard algorithms and how to reduce everything they do to "formulate a strategy and then solve doing one step at a time" I'm just boosting my own ego, right?

2. Most of my my kids' teachers don't get giftedness. Like DS13's pre-K teacher who didn't care that he knew how to read and so had him spend the year putting his finger on the letter B along with everyone else in his class. He learned nothing from her the entire year. But I only read with him at home to boost my own ego, right? There was nothing about brain development there.

An unfortunate fact is that very intelligent people recognize the shortcomings in the education system and recognize a duty to compensate for it. Another unfortunate fact is that people who aren't very intelligent tend to not recognize this problem. It's a mess and it stinks. Some work with their own kids. Others (myself included) are involved on other levels as well. We do the best we can and broad statements like yours just make the situation worse.