A Parent or a Teacher: Who is the most important?

I admit it, for years I thought that the most important person was the teacher – after all they had the training and experience – so they must be they most important, right?

Wrong!!!

The more I understand about children the more I realize that parents are more important than teachers in helping children learn.  As a committed teacher this was a difficult realization.  But I know that it is true.

I know children need both a parent and a teacher if they are to have access to the learning opportunities that bring success, so both parents and teachers are important.  But I also know that teachers cannot do their job if parents have not done theirs.  That’s right, it is impossible to teach a child who is not ready to learn, who has not had the help and support they need from their parents.

And that makes parents more important than teachers.

Now it starts to get scary.  Because no one is telling parents HOW to help children learn, how to get children ready to benefit from their schooling, how to be all that they can be.  So children are missing out, they are missing the types of learning opportunities that only parents can provide.  And when children fail to reach their learning potential we all suffer.

For far too long parents have been led to believe that learning happens in schools and that it is teachers who have the key to a child’s success.  Those brave parents who question the school system are called ‘pushy’ and ignored.  Those parents who leave education up to the schools are accused of not being involved in their cghild’s education, of not caring about their child’s future.

It is time for education systems to recognize the important role parents play in helping children learn. And not only to recognize this role- as many now do – but to provide parents with the means of fulfilling this role.

Parents have lost the art of helping children learn, it has been taken away from them by the perceived power of the system, and children miss out on important learning opportunities as a result.

Parents need to find other ways of discovering how to help children learn.

When you are ready to know what YOU can do to help your child Leading to Learning is one of the places you can go to get the information you need.