MBarq
My parenting experience has also helped me understand and respect the challenges of time management and divided attention that families deal with. I still think there are many overextended, overscheduled children and families, and I think that many of them are fooling themselves if they think it’s possible to do everything they want, do it well, sustainably, and not feel the negative effects in the near or long term. In my family, we have a quite limited number of extracurricular and family activities that we prioritize, and we still run into scheduling conflicts. Our family calendar looks like a mosaic. Our email inboxes fill up with messages from teachers, schools, the school district, parent organizations, other groups and activities. True confession: I don’t even read all the emails! Shocking, I’m sure. So, I realize now that even when the overall time commitments are reasonable, the potential for confusion and overload is there. Need an extension on that assignment? How long? As long as it doesn’t affect other people’s work, and as long as it’s requested before the due date, I’ll generally say yes. And if students are going to miss a few days of school to go to a family event or spend time with relatives who came to visit, fine. I’ll help them figure out how to make up work that’s necessary, and even let the little things slide.
My parenting experience has helped me respect that children and teens are always becoming, always a work in progress. When they arrive in your classroom with their particular strengths and weaknesses, there’s a backstory you don’t know. What appears to be a deficit may be an emerging strength. This year’s minor problems may have been prior years’ huge struggles. What you see as the results of good or bad parenting are often a matter of individuality and even luck, as children from the same family vary significantly. And sometimes, failure is part of becoming who they are. Failure is part of life, and the opportunity to learn from failure may be a gift more vital than any particular lesson plans or assessments. We shouldn’t set kids up for failure, but we shouldn’t move heaven and earth to spare them from the consequences of (non-dangerous) failures.
David B. Cohen is a veteran high school English teacher from Palo Alto, Calif., and former associate director of Accomplished California Teachers.
