Prime
Parents, teachers must share noble roles
What you need to know:
- The times have changed them. Worse still, not very many teachers have the will and zeal to listen and abate any of such situations given the times
Three times now since March 2020 when schools were first closed, I have been involved in solving cases of delinquency committed by my students even after spending months without them physically.
A parent stuck with a strange revelation about the conduct of their own child would call to ask ‘who their child is’ while at school – which has always been normal. The difference this time however is that unknown to many parents, there are behaviours and conducts that even the teacher least expects from their learner.
The times have changed them. Worse still, not very many teachers have the will and zeal to listen and abate any of such situations given the times.
With the advent of a full time school system, we previously have relied on schools to give way too much than formal education. It is not uncommon to have a child leaving their home before 10 years and living the rest of his/her childhood spending months at school and taking breaks of weeks at home.
The school system therefore has the very hard responsibility of developing the child in the spiritual, social, intellectual, moral, ethical, cultural, physical, aesthetic and psychological spheres.
Even when so hard, the school system - especially the primary and secondary levels – has given its fair share in ensuring that a ‘whole’ child is developed. The key expectations of society from a growing school-going child such as a sense of social responsibility, a likeable citizenship, standard discipline, fair teenage attitude, and respect for others and for property can never entirely be got from a school; but we formerly have let schools carry the burden of inculcating all these virtues and values.
Given the situation today, where children have gone through an abnormal time of spending months at home, parents have been put to a test. You for example find that everything in a school works on fixed schedules; study time, games, entertainment, meals, and prayers.
This shapes attitudes. In a home, balancing these activities with a parent as a supervisor is almost unpractical. Parents feel powerless to control and positively influence all such activities by their children and always look upon the school for aid.
It even gets worse for the parents who have had their children starting their adolescence while at home for such long times. The behavioural change in most cases goes unnoticed and before they know, it gets out of hand.
The senior woman teacher, the matron or school nurse is most known for calling aside a learner whose behaviour they notice changing just to admonish them with sincerity and the honest truth about their body changes. Sexual reproductive health knowledge rarely comes from a parent; we fear the discussion, we take it light or don’t care!
Without the admonishing, that’s how we have come to the many cases of teenage pregnancy, and an increased number of child mothers. While the school gives a balance to both physical and mental growth, the latter has been crippled by the long closure of schools. As a result, the physical growth of learners without relative counsel and pyscho-engagement has resulted into pedophilia, rape, defilement, and even incest; all whose effects we have witnessed raising lately.
As the school ‘rests’ and given that its surface role to society is offering formal education, we ought to consider also the out of class talents that have given so many young people a future. Be it sports, performing, drama, music. The school arrangement has long been the sole platform from which most such talents can be spotted, shared, grown, and developed.
How easy is it to convince a young mind which thinks it needs school to solely grow that talent, or worse still has not identified their talent that school is relevant anymore? And if they choose to find an easy way out to grow their talent or try to discover one out of school, how whole are they as they leave the school system?
All this draws us to a few facts; that a normal and balanced life of a child comes from a combination of good schooling, a stable family of parents, an accessible and collaborative extended family of two line relatives, an attachment to one’s local church/mosque and a supportive and relating community.
The mistake we have long carried on is to think a school can be a complete society. Without it now, all adhoc systems to carry out its roles have failed us.
It therefore, is prudent and practically wise that moving forward, as much as possible, we share the noble inseparable roles of teaching and parenting. Societies and families now know and acknowledge that it is not only algebra, science and class knowledge that schools give.
While we hide from the pandemic and wait for the ‘resting’ school to be woken up when it passes, we must also know that the vaccines won’t entirely solve the problems at hand.
The problem that our waiting school system faces is bigger than Covid-19 now. The technical challenges of how, what and when the teachings shall resume aside, the system shall be clogged with every sort of pending problem.
Derrick Bond Rutebemberwa
Teacher at Exodus College School
