The Role of Parents in Child’s Education

The Role of Parents in Child’s Education

“An educational system that absolves the parent from the process of learning is likely to end in ruins.” – Ajewole Oluwatoni

One of the greatest injustice that has been done to children is to try to seperate them from their parent through forced schooling and addictive media content. Meanwhile, research suggests that a child who constant access to their parents from childhood tend to do better than those who do not. We cannot afford to underestimate the role of parents in child’s education

The schools gives a false notion that kids are safe in the hands of their teachers who before that day were total strangers to these kids. To make it worse, by the end of a session, a new teacher will come around.

Parent on the other hand have come to believe overtime that their kids are not only safe with the school cum teacher but that an interferance in the child’s learning process is detrimental to their child’s education.

I love how my Twitter friend, Kathleen, puts it,

” In the UK, maybe elsewhere too, many parents seem to have come to believe that they are not only absolved but that they are detrimental to their children’s education. They’ve internalised it so deeply. This is an enormous part of how unhealthy this broken system in”

Following the natural order of things, kids are born into a family for a reason. A family is the natural habitat for a kid to learn and grow. The same way fishes have their habitat to be water and would barely survive on land is the same way we should see kids and their families.

We often think we are doing kids a great deal of favour by sending them to strangers to learn from. No, we are not doing them any favour. Rather, we are ruining their lives. They are struggling to keep up. They spend most of their lives trying to please these strangers which is what we do when we meet new people. We put on a fake smile or demeanour just to give a good first impression.

Learning becomes stifled in such environment. A lot of our kids are scared, sad, bored and filled with shame and they do not know who to turn to. Their teachers terrify them by putting lots of pressure on them. Their parents are not available to listen to them. Thus, they grow up with all of these negative emotions bottled up and it ends up messing with them. They begin to seek comfort in the wrong things and with the wrong people. The solution is to let parent handle their child’s education

I love John Taylor Gatto’s Commentary on this in his book, Dumbing us Down:

“Yet it appears to me as a schoolteacher that schools are already a major cause of weak families and weak communities. They separate parents and children from vital interaction with each other and from true curiosity about each other’s lives. Schools stifle family originality by appropriating the critical time needed for any sound idea of family to develop—then they blame the family for its failure to be a family. It’s like a malicious person lifting a photograph from the developing chemicals too early, and then pronouncing the photographer incompetent.”

It is important to note that I am in no way trivalizing the role of teachers in the learning process; however, I am more concerened about the kids that are forced through this system. Parents need to be a part of their child’s education even if it means homeschooling them.

We are more likely to learn better when we are in our habitat. I do not need need to win the favour of my parent for learning to happen. More so, learning that happens with the family happens in the midst of love, care and lots of freedom. A child’s education is hinged upon the fact that the parent, whom they are familiar with, is available to meet their needs when called upon.

In the early days before the advent of forced schooling, a child’s education was handled directly by the parent. The parents taught the kids everything they grow up to know about themselves, their history, culture and tradition. There was lesser chaos and children grew up to be better people. The seperation of kids from their parent in the learning process is a major reason why we have a lot of damaged kids and consequently a damaged society.

In the same book, John Taylor Gatto also had this to say:

“But no large-scale reform is ever going to work to repair our damaged children and our damaged society until we force open the idea of ‘school’ to include family as the main engine of education. If we use schooling to break children away from parents – and make no mistake, that has been the central function of schools since John Cotton announced it as the purpose of the Bay Colony schools in 1650 and Horace Mann announced it as the purpose of Massachusetts schools in 1850 – we’re going to continue to have the horror show we have right now.

The ‘Curriculum of Family’ is at the heart of any good life. We’ve gotten away from that curriculum – it’s time to return to it. The way to sanity in education is for our schools to take the lead in releasing the stranglehold of institutions on family life, to promote during schooltime confluences of parent and child that will strengthen family bonds.”

Without doubt, traditional schools do not seem to be working. With the rise in capitalism and the chase to climb the social ladder, many parents have become obsessed with how much they are worth than their child’s education. Parents must intentionally find a way into the learning process of their children.

It is more than just helping them with their homework and assignments. It is being actively involved. Yes, it might be difficult but not impossible. With the rise of remote work, I strongly believe that families will be reunited and would turn out to produce better kids and a better society at large. It might be difficult to admit but homeschooling might be the best way for parents to be a part of their child’s education.