I stopped sending home homework in mid-January. I've been teaching for 14 years, and I send homework because parents want it, not because it actually helps. I hate it though...preparing it, passing it out, making sure every kid gets it and puts in their backpack...its effort, time, and a headache for no real purpose--homework rarely helps anyone. The high kids don't need it but do it, the low kids need it but don't do it, and we're all the worst for it.
So, in January, I stopped. I didn't send home any, and I didn't provide any explanations.
And not a single parent asked. Not one. Not even the ones I had spoken to earlier in the year, the ones whose children couldn't read, the ones who were struggling, and who has promised, had sworn, had begged for something else to help their child. (What they didn't know, or perhaps were actively in denial about, was that their child couldn't read, was struggling, because the first 7 years of their lives had been abject neglect, indifference, and a profound disinterest in whatever problems seemed to prevent their child from learning.) Not one asked for homework, not one inquired as to why I had stopped...not one.
A few weeks later our school gave out books for each child--an initiative to have the entire school, Pre-k-5, read one novel. The novels came with a brochure, featuring questions per chapter to help engage young readers.
I sent home the brochures...I forgot to send home the books. (They were left on a counter in my classroom, beside a wobbling pile of test booklets and overlooked--the brochures had gotten sorted with their graded papers and sent home on a Friday).
And not a single parent, not one, asked where the accompanying book was. Not one. No one even asked why they received a list of questions for a book they didn't have. I didn't send the books home for over a month...and no one asked.
A month after sending home report cards (the physical ones...the online grades had been available for longer, and the physical graded papers were sent home biweekly) a parent asked why her child had an F in writing. I told her she was an indifferent speller and highly distracted, as per our numerous previous conversations. That her inability to attend to her work, pay attention to teaching, or focus or concentrate on anything was hindering her grades...and that not only writing was suffering. Her mother responded with "I understand"...and that was that. No further communication. No further question or comment as to why her daughter had a negative score on our schools behavior tracker...which she had to see in order to message me on said platform.
I have a boy who can't read. Not, he struggles...he can't read. When I got him at 7, he could read nothing. A year on, and we've made it up to words with silent e's, but he still struggles. He sounds out each word. He has to be taught all "heart words". Nothing is organic. He also suffers from anger outbursts, an inability to regulate his emotions, sensory issues, and what amounts to a near unintelligible speech impediment. (He lost 7 baby teeth due to rot before he was 3. It impacted his ability to speak.) His parent informed us, at the end of year meeting, that the doctors had suspected autism, but she had never followed up with subsequent testing.
I wrote a note to about half my parents in December. "If you are receiving this note, then your child has lost or deliberately destroyed their headphones. Headphones are required for our online programs we are required to use. They have been previously provided a pair. Please provide one going forward." Every child showed up with another pair, which they proceeded to break/destroy within the next month. I didn't bother to write home again.
There is a quote from the Horus Heresy, spoken by the titular Horus. "There is no evil. There is indifference."
I don't think, strictly speaking, that's true. I think perhaps a truer quote might be "There is evil, and there is indifference."
People say over and over that parents today are different. We place all sorts of value judgements. But I think perhaps it's that parents are, at their very core, at their root, the most indifferent generation of parents I have ever taught.
There were always parents who didn't care. Who checked out. Who weren't present. I teach at a mixed low-income/high-income school--this was not uncommon. But those parents, previously, had been rare, and more often than not, the circumstances of their lives had led to their inability to connect to their children's education. It wasn't so much indifference as it was prioritization. They didn't have access to a phone to receive my calls, didn't have the transportation to make it to the school for conferences.
Last year I had a parent tell me, when she brought her daughter for Meet the Teacher, that she could "buy whatever I needed for the classroom, but don't ask me to volunteer." We have a PTA at our school (which boasts close to 900 students) that will be shutting down next year because we don't have any parents willing to run for one of the three positions on the board, and we don't even have enough parents who will show up to a meeting to even vote to keep the board we managed to scrape together two years ago (our previous school board shut down due to criminal activity--of which I can say no more).
It's not evil--it is complete and utter indifference. Parents love their children. But they don't have time for them or their needs, and they don't have the time to care. There has been talk of the phenomenon of "roommate" parenting, and I don't think it's quite accurate--it's more like siblings. You live together, you love each other, you care for each other, you have fun together...but you have your own lives, your own interests. The only difference is that parents are the sole providers.
I have been asked, on more than one occasion, what I would suggest for handling various behavioral issues. "Well, what should I do?" My response is always, "I know what I do in my classroom. You have to decide what you will do, in your home." I didn't choose to have a child--you did. You chose the child, you raise the child. I'm not their parent, I am their teacher, and my influence and control stops where my classroom door ends.
I don't know how we fix this. I don't know what we do to make this better. I do know, that unless it does, things are going to get worse and worse. Children haven't changed--when you can pry them from technology, when you can show them consequences for actions, when you set rules and parameters and standards, when you show them joy and wonder and curiosity and excitement--they are still children. They learn and they laugh and they cry and they grow the way that children have always done, since time immemorial. But I can't fix untreated disorders, overlooked speech impairments, brains broken by too much screen time and not enough time outside, kids who only 'read' graphic novels and refuse to engage in anything long form or remotely challenging, parents who can't be bothered to look at at app that tracks behavior once a day or show up to a 15 minute over the phone conference twice a year. I will keep on keeping on--it's the only thing I can do. I'll teach to the half of the room that cares and wants to learn, to the half that tries their hardest, and to the ones that with enough love can pull through, even a little--but I worry about the time when it's not enough. When the half is a quarter, when the ones I can't reach outnumber the ones I can. When too much becomes too much. When I find myself sinking into the same indifference that plagues their parents. When perhaps Horus' original quote becomes true.
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