Playing Both Roles: Parent-Teacher and Teacher-Parent, an outcome of the Pandemic
As the world around us evolves, it is becoming more important to properly prepare and support youth, especially Black and brown youth formal educational outcomes. Within the realm of support there is discussion surrounding the increased need for growing responsibilities of parents as teachers and teachers as parents. This was evident at the height of the pandemic, when working parents and professional teachers with their own children had to play both roles at the same time. For centuries, these roles have existed in their own respective silos. Prior to the institutionalization of education these roles were merged in appropriate and respectful ways. In essence, it is becoming even more necessary for teachers and parents to engage in sharing across the borders of race, culture and knowledge and address the responsibilities each has with the other for accountability of youth development.
Why the Overlap?
The simple answer is that there is a lack of understanding, empathy, and communication between parents, teachers, and students alike. Across the nation, white educators make up 80% of teachers while the number of white students has decreased to under 50% and the percentage of Latino and Black students has increased (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022). In the world of colleges and universities, the data shows little difference, with white professors making up around 76% of the teaching population in higher education. In contrast, white students only comprise 53% of the college student population (Duffin, 2022). The racial disparity that exists perpetuates large discrepancies in many areas of education including success, diploma & degree attainment, and even the feeling of belonging in the educational setting. The racial disparity creates the pathway for the aforementioned lacking in understanding, empathy, and communication.
Teachers Are Supposed to Teach and Parents Should Be Parenting. Right?
While the most common thought process is that teachers should be teachers and parents should be parents, what is often overlooked is that their roles are intricately connected. In fact, in the roles that both teachers and parents play, they operate, in many ways, as one another. In other words, when either role is performed, teachers take on some form of parenting and parents embody the characteristics of a teacher. For those who have children this dichotomy is false. The illusion that we can separate the roles has been fostered by our construction of western type educational institutions.
When a person becomes a parent or guardian, they become the first person that will teach the child they are raising. Throughout every person’s life, the younger generation watches the older ones that surround them, particularly their parents or guardians, and makes decisions about how to speak, behave, think, accept, reject, and come to terms with other pieces of their socialization that they experience in the environment. It is by this knowledge that parents/guardians are deemed a child’s very first teacher in life. It's true, parents are not usually creating lesson plans or obligated to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, but they are certainly responsible for the initial values, lessons, and actions that are often seen by “trained” teachers once the formal educational space is entered.
When I was growing up, for instance, my mother placed a heavy emphasis on me for behaving and doing well in school and going through appropriate authoritative channels if there was a problem. As a result of that, I have no documentation of misbehavior in school, was in an accelerated student program, in all advance placement and honors classes, and graduated in the top 10% of my graduating class. Had my mother not socialized me with those particular values, I certainly could have had a more difficult experience in grade school. Without those explicit values and particular pieces of socialization internalized by the child, there is an increased likelihood of students entering into school and struggling with building healthy relationships, attentiveness in class, and comprehension of lessons.
Teachers, though their primary responsibility is to formally educate through a structured curriculum, become extremely valuable adults in children’s lives. Once in the formal academic setting, students spend around 8 of their approximate 12 hour day, every weekday with their teachers. Many students often come into school with other challenges and issues that come from their personal lives. They can be experiencing a multitude of things outside of school such as poverty, housing displacement or insecurity, abuse, excessive responsibility, and much more. Each challenge, alongside their socialization, directly affects their formal educational experience and interactions with teachers. Teachers often are tasked with becoming parental figures to their students when parents may not be present or trusted.
While it may be less of a struggle mentally, to view teachers as teachers and parents as just parents, it is not accurate. In order for the development and growth of a student to be successful, both parents and teachers must operate collaboratively and embody each other’s roles when necessary and according to communicated parameters.
Implicit Bias & The Misuse of Power & Privilege
For quite some time, The disconnect that exists among teachers and parents, teachers and students, and students and parents can be correlated to both their upbringing or background and current states of being in life. With a majority of teachers being white and tasked with teaching increasingly diverse classrooms, there are preconceived ideas about students of color in the classroom, stemming from predominantly white female educators' own socialization and unconscious biases. There are actions that can be correlated to biases from teachers to students seen in the way that teachers react to students of color, particularly Black students.
I recall being in grade school, particularly middle school, and noticing the difference between the way white teachers communicated and dealt with students of color versus the way teachers of color dealt with students of color. At the time, I did not understand what I was observing and how incredibly impactful it was, but, what I witnessed is this: White teachers being fearful of, dismissive of, or simply kicking students of color out of the class. On the other hand, teachers of color often were able to address students of color with more empathy and often sought the support from other teachers of color who were positively involved with the student, especially a coach or teacher of the same gender.
In this case, it appears to be that white teachers, particularly white women teachers, are unable to properly deal with people who come from disparaging backgrounds and do not exhibit the emotional capacity and genuine interest in students that do not come from the same background or mindset as them. Being able to remove a child from a classroom and disenfranchise their learning and the learning of others because you are not equipped to understand, empathize, or properly communicate with them is a true example of exercising privilege and power. On the other hand, it seems as though teachers of color were able to build dimensional relationships with the student, other teachers in the school, and the parents to be able to positively contribute to the student and the relationship they had with the parents. I can remember one of my peers not minding my Black 7th grade English teacher while she was teaching. Rather than calling for the resource officer or telling the student to leave the classroom, she briefly paused the lesson and said “Give me three minutes and we are gonna have a quick meeting.” Shortly after, she and the student stepped outside of the trailer and as the door closed, the class heard the teacher say “Now you know ya mama ain’t gonna be happy if I or any of your teachers have to call her.” Two minutes later, they both came back in and that student was no longer a “problem”. As a matter of fact, that teacher became the favorite teacher of that student.
If teachers exhibit a lack of interest and emotional capacity with students who are unlike them, it is safe to presume that the same would be said for the parents of the student. The lack of empathy and understanding on the teacher’s behalf creates a lack of trust from the parent and enables defensive attitudes between the teacher and parent. The teacher views themself as the expert due to formal education and the parent views themself as the expert due to being primarily responsible for raising their child and therefore believes they know better. However, the teacher possesses the perceived power of being in an authoritative position.
Building the Foundation to Bridge the Parent-Teacher Relationship Gap
Building a partnership between two authoritative and defensive people is nearly impossible. So, the question remains; how do we build that relationship and where to begin? How do teachers and parents begin to form meaningful and positively influential relationships? As the partnership between parent and teacher is constructed, it is vital to include proper and straightforward communication, steadfast consistency, and complete collaboration (Vasantha. K.P., 2021).
As required by any relationship, communication is vital. In understanding the mutual roles that exist between them, parents and teachers are able to communicate with one another in a way that establishes the foundation and framework for a relationship that establishes checks and balances for the student or student(s). The lines of communication must be agreed upon and each person is open for questioning without judgment and listening to what is being expressed, even what the other may not be prepared to hear. When there are cultural dynamics in the mix, each party must be willing to do their due diligence in understanding the other's culture and especially as it pertains to understanding the life circumstances of the student and their family.
After the framework is established, acknowledging the partnership where each person in the partnership remains consistent and in action to maintain the communication and the established relationship. Consistency shows continued interest in the relationship and allows one’s partner to know that they are not the only person putting in effort to progress the relationship. Lastly, equitable collaboration is a must. Understanding each other's position, responsibilities, and how they overlap, provides opportunity to build a collaborative approach to parenting and teaching.
Parents Connecting with Teachers, And Teachers with Parents
When opportunities to establish rapport with one another present themselves, it is vital that both parties take advantage of the opportunity. For the parent, that may mean staying the duration of a “Meet the Teacher” event. As the school year progresses, the relationship between parent and teacher can be expanded if parents make an effort to stop by the classroom in person as often as possible. It is also important to respond to school correspondence. As the foundation is being built, it is also important for parents to be honest with teachers about their experience and the teachers with the parents.
For the teacher there may be a need to put a little more time in to make contact with the student’s parents outside of conventional work hours. Teachers can also call parents to share positive things about their child; teachers can ensure that parents are being contacted for the growth and development of the student. Support parents with staying up to date about things that are taking place in the classroom. Teachers can also optimize on the opportunities to include parents by creating required or opt-in opportunities, encouraging parental participation.
Putting in the effort on both ends of the partnership allows for trust to develop and communication to open up more. This provides space for questions which then leads to a better understanding, resulting in better supportive actions that are unique to a specific student, ensuring a higher rate of success, involvement, and positive outlook on education.
Parents and teachers alike have extremely influential roles in the lives of students and in the lives of each other. While developing students is the primary reason for forming the parent teacher partnership, it is not the only positive outcome. By taking actionable steps to break down the silos between teachers and parents, we practice humanitarianism through practices of listening, understanding, empathizing, and moving forward together. All of this, while we dismantle systemic structures that bind, limit, and misuse communities of color through the youth. If better is desired, better must be done, and that is exactly what happens when parents and teachers choose to work together versus believing they are only responsible for what their labeled roles imply.