A DAD'S LIFE:Parent's verbal attack on principal is out of order, writes ADAM BROPHY
I’M DROPPING the kids to school and the principal, as is her habit, is by the entrance, greeting us all. I’m dragging my two behind, not paying attention to much beyond getting them in the door until I become aware of a brief altercation.
A parent has emerged from the building, coughed a line of abuse in the principal’s direction, waved an arm dismissively at her and stormed off. As it happens, we’re next to go past and she is visibly shaken, and this is a woman who doesn’t get shook.
I don’t want to pry, but I’m both shocked and intrigued. I send the kids off and ask if she’s okay. She informs me that, occasionally, part of the job involves taking flak from parents. It’s not enjoyable, it’s not pretty, but it’s par for the course.
Really? How many other people have jobs that involve standing in the rain at 8.50 on a Monday morning with the possibility that someone on the outer edges of the organisation that you head will bark in your face that you’re a buffoon?
This shocks me on a number of levels. I know that a teacher shouldn’t make a child suffer for his or her parent’s misdemeanours, but I would not allow any parent back on school property who believed they had the right to spit vitriol in my face. If that means the child has to change school, so be it. Obviously I would be a less tolerant principal than the one in the job.
But on a human level, where does someone learn that it’s okay to behave aggressively towards another person, particularly someone who has direct responsibility for the safekeeping of their child? In confronting a teacher in public you undermine their position, you cause your own child anxiety, and you make yourself look a prat.
Where you send your kids to school is a leap of faith. The decision may be based on reports from existing parents or an impression made on visiting the establishment, but most of the time it is borne of convenience – this is a place you may have to get to, twice a day, for a number of years. But whatever the reason, when you pack your kids through that door you have no idea how they will react to their teacher, to the kids around them and to the ethos of the school which, of course, is dictated by the principal.
Most kids respond just fine, but there will be issues in every class. Kids will bully and be bullied. Kids will have difficulties at home and will act out in the classroom. Kids will have problems learning. For some, school is a joy, for others a sentence. But accepting school policy is the parents’ responsibility, not the teacher’s. If issues arise that can’t be resolved, it is up to the parent to decide whether their child’s best interests are served by staying in the school or not.
As a parent, if you disagree with the practices being adopted in any school, you are perfectly within your rights to voice your complaints. The best-run schools are the ones that listen to suggestions and have a fluid, open policy. The school my kids attend is one of those schools. If it was not and my concerns were not being heard, I would place them elsewhere and complain officially. That may inconvenience me, but I don’t manage the school, I only manage my kids.
There are many educational dilemmas facing parents. The fact that the vast majority of primary schools are Catholic is ridiculous considering the religious leanings of the vast majority of parents. Schools are underfunded and overcrowded. For the most part, their IT infrastructure is at a Third World level. The Department of Education pays exorbitant rent on land and buildings when it should have had premises custom-built when money was sloshing around its coffers.
But most important for schoolgoing kids is the relationship they develop with their teacher and, by extension, their principal. I would have them schooled in a crumbling, Victorian workhouse if it meant they were exposed to good teaching. By extension, I would remove them from the shiniest seat of learning if I felt it was instilling values I disagreed with.
I can do that because I am an adult and seek alternatives to stamping my foot and pouting when things do not go my way.