INTRODUCTION

It is very rarely that the teacher in India knows the parents of his pupils. Even when he knows them, it is very rarely that he takes up the problems of his pupils for discussion with them. Still it cannot be denied that mutual understanding and cooperation between the teacher and the parent can go a long way in helping education in schools and developing the personality of the pupil. The teacher has his own view of the child in his care. The child is one of so many students in a class. But to the parent the child is a part of his own self, his future hope. Both these views are partial and one-sided and to some extent blurred. It is only when there is cooperation between the parent and the teacher that the education and development of the child can be understood in their correct perspective.

While in many advanced countries the home and the school are getting closer together and inter-acting for the benefit of children, here in our country no serious attempt has so far been made to get the home and the school influence each other for the advantage of the child. The school and the home in India are separate worlds in themselves. In some cases, however, the teacher is employed by the parents as private tutor for their children. But this does not result in active parent-teacher cooperation. The private tutor is regarded as an appendage, as a part of the staff employed by the home.

The chances of parent-teacher cooperation in the education of children in the hundreds of thousands of elementary and secondary schools in our villages and towns are very slight mainly because of economic factors and the general backwardness of our people. In an overwhelming majority of our schools children receive their education mechanically and regard school-going as part of an established routine, the purpose of which they are unaware. The parent, on the other hand, hardly makes his influence felt in the education of the child. If, however, there is a rare case of a parent trying to take interest in the education of his child and finding out what goes on in the school, the help that he gets from the school is very little.

In the changed circumstances of today, when the character of education has undergone great transformation, parent-teacher cooperation has become essential. Time was when the home itself was the school and the parents and relations of the child were the teachers. In ancient India, on the contrary, the Gurukula was the home of the student. Later on when education became more broad-based, the home and the school became separate entities with very little in common between them. The content of education that was imparted was the be-all and end-all of everything and parents could either take it or leave it. They had no say in the education of the child. All that was aimed at was the gaining of the matriculation certificate by the pupil.

Attempts are now being made to make education more and more child-centred. It has been accepted on all hands that an education which does not encourage the individuality of the child and its development into a well-integrated person is not worth its name. Co-curricular activities, physical education and training in leadership have begun to assume greater importance than mere book-learning. Besides, both parents and teachers have recognised the need to suit instruction to the varied abilities and aptitudes of the children in their charge.

Parents have come to realise in an increasing measure that education is something more than the passing of examinations. Society has become more and more complex. Political emancipation and growing industrialisation have thrown open avenues for leadership and employment. Viewed in this context, the important role that the Indian teacher has to play in society cannot be over-estimated. It is only in very selected schools that he comes across parents who understand the significance and importance of parent-teacher cooperation.

The average Indian parent is yet to realise fully the value of parent-teacher consultations in-the education of the child.
It is in the hands of the teachers to bring the parent round and enlist his active cooperation. In the following pages an attempt is made to explain how the teacher can fulfi his role in this sacred undertaking.

Chapter 1 SCHOOLS AS PARENTS SEE THEM

It is common experience that childhood memories are long-lasting. It would be strange indeed if they did not colour the parent’s approach to those who teach their children. Parents, however successful materially and prominent socially, adopt, in the main, a defensive attitude when they face their children’s teacher. This is not merely true of parents who in their days had been only average students. Even those parents who habitually take pride in their past achievements at school, put on, when they face the teachers of their children, an air of faint aggressiveness, easily detectable as springing from a sense of being on trial. They tend to be over-critical of schools and teachers, which widens the gulf that already exists between the home and the school.

The initiative in bridging this gulf rests with the teacher. He has, so to speak, to break the ice. To do so he has to be understanding; he has to realise that parents see themselves in their children. The teacher has to reassure them and win their confidence. He should be objective, sympathetic and discerning. He should make the school attractive to the child and open the eyes of the parents to the fact that his school has an air of freedom and freshness, which in their own school days they did not experience. If the school is made an interesting place for the child and the teacher adopts the right approach, diffident or defensive or over-critical parents can be brought round to take an active interest in the school in which their children are taught and pay. due heed to the person who teaches them. It is important for the child’s growth that a harmonious relationship is established between its school and its parents, the two component factors that largely determine the character of its world.

It is common experience of teachers that when parents visit schools, one of the oft-heard remarks is that things were very different in their days. Spelling and handwriting and recitation were more conscientiously insisted upon. History and geography were taught with greater precision. In short, what they convey is not very complimentary to the school in which their child is receiving instruction. Normally, the teacher’s reply is not effective; he uses terms like co-curricular activities, progressive education, child-centred teaching, vocational bias, creative expression and so on. All these mean nothing in the absence of a mutual psychological appreciation on the part of the parent and the teacher.

Much of the present dissatisfaction of parents in regard to schools and the reaction of despair in the mind of the teacher can disappear if the teacher, aware of the parent’s picture of the school, tries to change it and paint a new and a truer one in its place. What is happening in our country in the field of education, as in all other fields of national effort, is that both qualitatively and quantitatively, the character of the institutions is changing rapidly.
It is evident that Basic schools, secondary schools, polytechnics and colleges in our country are growing in number with a large intake of students. They are also changing in character and in the objectives they place before themselves. These changes are not, by any means, unwelcome to parents.

On the contrary they are glad, and their reaction is an increased anxiety that their children should benefit in an ever-increasing measure from these changes. It has been the experience of most teachers in the last few years that more parents insist on their children getting technical rather than academic training. Parents wait anxiously to be toid that their children have been chosen for science courses rather than for studies in arts, and the children chosen for the latter very often consider themselves relegated to an inferior intellectual status.

The increasing prominence given to science subjects is a measure of the great change that is taking place in our social outlook. Both parents and teachers understand and recognise the growing importance of Science subjects as natural and inevitable in the circumstances of today. Parents are interested in getting their children admitted to courses in technical studies but they do not concern themselves-and here is the point-with the methods by which instruction is imparted The teacher should take it upon himself to apprise the parent of the content of the courses, the method by which the subjects are taught, the facilities at the disposal of his school, and the potentialities and fitness of the pupils in his charge. He has to convince the parent that the school has the atmosphere and the apparatus to enable him to give the child an all-round instruction, make his life at school a profitable period, and fit him for life after school in the context of the social objectives of the day. He has to make the parent a partner in the adventure which is what educating a growing child is, particularly in these times of change and social progress.

The Indian teacher has it in him to effect a transformation in the attitude of parent to the school. With all the disadvantages he suffers from-and these are not peculiar to this country, and one hopes they will decrease until they cease to be-he has sincerity of purpose and willingness to work.
Therefore, he is more than qualified to address himself to the task of ensuring parent-teacher cooperation.

The amount of such cooperation will vary from institution to institution, school to school, depending upon the peculiar conditions of each institution or school. Whatever the conditions, it is absolutely essential that parents and teachers should find opportunities of meeting each other.
They should meet with a desire to understand each other, to obtain a proper appraisal of each other’s problems and to thrash out ways and means of countering them in a manner that will be salutary for the growth of the child in their care. When the parent sees in the teacher a true guiding spirit intent on drawing out the best in the child notwithstanding the inadequacies that beset his task, his attitude becomes friendly. He sets great store by the contact between such a teacher and the child and the benefits that will accrue by the former’s influence on the mind of the child. It is a worthwhile task, an important pre-requisite to the education of the child, which the Indian teacher is fully competent to perform. The move should come from him.

 

CHAPTER 2 WHAT PARENTS OUGHT TO KNOW

In such Indian schools where parent-teacher cooperation is practicable, the obsession with the immediate and mechanical academic achievement of the student very often bedevils the relationship between parents and teachers. Here the teacher is less responsible than the parents. Schools which can afford the luxury of some kind of individual attention to each student are usually patronised by parents belonging to the more fortunate classes of society. Parents who send their children to such schools can, if they make an effort, understand that social and economic conditions in the country
are so shaping that leadership in professions, success in industrial management or in the administration of institutions will not hereafter depend so exclusively, as they have done so far, on the narrow mechanical achievements at examinations. In proportion to their capacity for such understanding, the demands of parents on the teachers will change.

The teacher can do very little in creating this understanding. It can be created only by those people who are at the helm, who shape the economic and social policies of the country. It is their task to explain to the public as often and as clearly as possible that the value of education in the future will be judged more and more by the kind of citizens it helps to produce. Education should help to create socially useful men and women, alive to their social responsibilities in a Welfare State. This would mean that in order to be a useful citizen in the context of today a person should be both a specialist in some branch of knowledge and at the same time possess a wide general knowledge and strength of character. If this is impressed upon parents by leaders of thought and action, parents will be able to understand what teachers are up against and what is in the interest of their own children.

Understanding of the social factors will have the way for parent-teacher cooperation. Parents should at least have some idea about what learning stands for. There have been many divergent and conflicting views on learning. According to one school of pedagogy, learning is the development of the capacity in the child to respond in the most advantageous manner to the given stimuli. This school of thought assumes that the capacity in the child to respond can be most effectively developed if the act of response gives a sense of satisfaction. There is another school of thought which holds-mainly among those who are experts on education-that learning depends a great deal on the environment of the learner. They hold that whatever is taught to the child should be related to its environment.

 

The idea is that a child will perceive quicker and make the knowledge that it obtains its own if what is taught has intimate relationship with the actual living conditions that surround it. If competitive habits are to be learnt, the student must be placed in such a group that he feels he also has a chance to win. There is another concept which lays importance on motivation in the learner. The desire to excel is inherent in every individual. This desire for distinction should be promoted, as frustration of this desire will result in the withering away of learning. At the same time too easy satisfaction of any desire is likely to kill initiative.

All these concepts have elements of fundamental truths in them. In the final analysis the worth of all these concepts lies in their practical application. The teacher in the course of his professional training becomes familiar with these concepts and if he is loyal to his vocation and tries to do his best to provide such situations and offer such encouragement as will result in the drawing out of the will to learn from the students in his charge, he will have done his job. But he has certain limitations. He is not the master of the entire time and environment of his students. The real master of the student’s time and environment is the parent. The parent will be able to influence, the capacity of his child to respond to stimuli, to use his environment and to exercise initiative only if he is familiar with the fundamental truths about learning. This is not to say that the parent also should be a teacher in the strictly technical sense of the term.

In any case, very few parents have the time to usurp, so to speak, the functions of the professional teacher. What is important is the parent should be aware and confident that he can get advice from the teacher in regard to how best he can arrange the home for the maximum advantage of the child. He can help from the home side in establishing a harmonious relationship between the child’s home life and its life at school. Thus begins parent-teacher cooperation. The most that the teacher can do here in so far as parents are concerned is to be ready to otter advice. Beyond that he will naturally be wary. It is a delicate matter for him. Even to offer advice sometimes is not easy. But it is clear that if the education of the child is to be worthwhile at all, parents should be knowledgeable and understanding and teachers devoted to their work and their charge.

 

Parents’ Notions of Intelligence

Parents form their own notions about the intelligence of their children. Very often we hear parents referring to one of their children as the ‘dud of the family’. ‘Intelligence quotient’ and the letters ‘I.Q.’, though not properly understood have gained common currency in our day. Teachers too use these terms loosely, in place and out of place. “Lacking in intelligence” and “an intelligent student” are stock remarks that teachers write on the progress cards. Let us now attempt to find out what “intelligence” really and truly connotes.

We know only too well that the property termed as intelligence cannot be separated from the child for a correct definition. It is an all-inclusive word, denoting ability, capacity, power and adaptability. A recent definition of intelligence is that it is the ability to undertake activities that are characterised by difficulty, complexity, abstractness, economy, adaptiveness to a goal, social value and the emergence of originals, and to maintain such activities under conditions that demand concentration of energy and a resistance to emotional forces.

The above definition by George D. Stoddard in his book, “The Meaning of Intelligence”, should help both parents and teachers not to use the word so lightly as they do it today.

Both heredity and environment play prominent roles in the acquiring of intelligence. To a large extent, intelligence is an inherited capacity. Through this capacity, it is possible for one to adapt oneself to a suitable environment. In schools, we are more concerned with the role that environment has to play in the possibility of increasing a child’s intelligence. It is environment that provides opportunity and stimulus for
inherited intelligence to develop and function. Both the home and the school do provide such environments. The intelligence of the parents, the intelligence of the teachers, the economic status of the home and of the school, the educational levels of parents and teachers, and situations of the home and the school, all contribute to the environment of the child.

The remark that a particular child has a low I.Q. means almost nothing and it might also mean that the person making the remark is incapable of providing an intelligent environment. The questions whether heredity or environment is the major factor in intelligence remains
as yet unanswered. Parents can justifiably claim that it is environment and teachers will have ample justification too to argue that the child is not intelligent because that is not its family trait. Such a state of affairs can only damage parent-teacher cooperation. So, it is best to believe that intelligence is the product of heredity and environment, each making equal and significant contributions.

As teachers it is our duty to work towards increasing the effective intelligence of the children placed under our care, and this we can do only if we place before them, and surround them with the best possible environmental stimulation. Such conditions, if provided, help also in building up the personality of the children and their emotional stability. Parents should particularly note how the school environment helps to motivate a richer vocabulary, and more correct understanding. If such motivation is not provided, we teachers and our schools are guilty of wasting childhood, and we shall be failing in a sacred social duty.

CHAPTER 3 PARENTS AND CHILDREN

The basis on which parent-teacher relationship should be promoted and the gulf between the home and the school should be bridged is the bond of love which unites parents and children.

Parental love can fill the teacher with confidence in his attempts at cooperation. The teacher knows in advance that the help that he is seeking is only in the interests of the object of the parent’s love. Only in rare cases, parental response will not be forthcoming. The parent cannot but be interested in the teacher who, in turn, is interested in the child. Many of us who see boys and girls in classrooms are not generally conscious of the bond between them and their parents. Each student has his parents at home and incidents that happen at school, trivial or important, get reported at home. If what they hear from their children about their doings at school convinces them that the school has attractions for their chil-dren, they will take some friendly interest in the school. To many of us a student is just a student. The fact that behind the student are his parents who toil for his welfare escapes us.

It is indeed very easy for a teacher to score away a whole line in a student’s notebook with red ink and finally award two marks out of ten for the work done. The teacher might feel irritated at the lack of intelligence shown by the student, but the matter should not end here. He should try and know the sort of home the student comes from, the influences that surround him outside his school. The teacher’s progress reports should not be a routine statement which points out just the bare facts of the student’s performance in a particular paper in an examination. While marks should be given and recorded, the progress report should be based on an observation of the student’s home life, his surroundings, his ability in class and should indicate in what way he has progressed or failed and what he requires if he is to show progress.

It is not selfishness on the part of a parent to want the very best for his child. So teachers who want to break the barrier and bring the home into the school should appreciate the love that binds parents to their children and shape their attitude accordingly. The average parent in India, rich or poor, big or small, is keen to know from the child about happenings in the school. It may be that there are some parents, utterly and selfishly, engrossed in themselves. The large majority are keen to know. how their children are getting on at school, during their most formative years. Though most parents are amateurs in educational methods, they know much more of their own children than we teachers do. We teachers know of their children only as students.

A teacher forms a very good opinion of a class, and it is quite possible that another teacher handling a different subject has a very different opinion of the same class. It may be that teachers have their own opinions about the various students in the same class. But parent’s knowledge of their children as individuals will be far more accurate and dependable than even that of the best teacher. While the teacher can study only one phase of a child’s development, the parent has intimate knowledge of its past life, its likes and dislikes and its innate abilities.

Though the parent alone is in possession of all these details regarding his child, it does not at all mean that he or she alone is the ideal teacher for the child. In many cases we come across parents who do not live up to their responsibilities. Parenthood alone cannot confer on them the rights which they may claim for themselves. There are as many different and difficult types of parents as there are adults in this world. This fast, the teacher has specially to bear in mind in his task of helping the student with the cooperation of his parents.

Students cannot do well in a class if the teacher does not understand them well. Many children are backward in certain subjects due mainly to the fact that the teacher has failed to understand them and their difficulties. The same is the case with parents. The teacher will naturally find it more difficult to understand the parents and their difficulties. The child is young and can be changed, but the adult parent has set convictions.

Once some kind of understanding is established between the teacher and the parent, it becomes simpler for both to discuss the education of the child. Parents should be apprised of the changes that have taken place in educational outlook. Parents should know that ideas on child-care and home management, on elementary and secondary education have undergone a great transformation. Several theories have been welcomed and dismissed like, for instance, Rousseau’s Emile, theories on faculty psychology and the doctrine of formal discipline. All these changes have bewildered the parent and put him at a great disadvantage. Besides, when teachers fail in their task at school, the fashion is to lay the blame on the home without making any attempt to fuse the home and the school. This situation has made even cooperative parents wonder from time to time whether they are doing the right thing for their children. Well-intentioned parents in a state of doubt about their children’s education should be enabled to have experienced advice from responsible teachers.

Parents as Rulers and Inspirers

Of late, as we have seen before, education in India is becoming increasingly child-centred. The first vision of the child is the vision of its parents. Indeed, there are many pro verbs to the effect that parents are the earliest visible manifestations of God. But as the child grows, parents become absolute rulers of the child. There is no doubt that parental control is necessary for a growing child, but the intelligent parent allows free scope for the child’s individuality and growing personality. No rigid rule-of-thumb can be set down as to what extent parents can go in punishing an erring child.
But if there is coordination between the child’s school life and home life, the necessary guidance in the matter of meeting out the correct treatment to the growing child will be available to the parents.

Here we are really up against a problem. There have been many views on the merits and demerits of parental authority. Pestalozzi, for instance, was not very certain where he was to draw the line between freedom and obedience in the education of his own son. This problem of division is not confined to parents alone. It is a problem relating to human life itself and educators both at home and at school have to give it due weight. Much depends on the one hand on the particular child one is dealing with, and on the other on the ability of the teacher and the parent to judge objectively and determine the extent to which they could exercise authority and encourage liberty. There are parents who are natural tyrants and there are also parents who are naturally easy-going.

However, the modern parent will not, it is certain, agree with Rousseau who had this to say of his Emile: “Speak to him of duty, of obedience, he makes nothing of what you say; command him in anything, he will take no notice; but say to him ‘if you will oblige me in this, I will return the favour some other time’, he will immediately hasten to do as you ask, for he likes nothing better than to extend his domination and to acquire rights over you which he knows you will esteem as sacred.” If there be a parent who puts this into practice, he will come in for universal criticism of having utterly spoiled his child. How far then can we accept the suggestion that interference and authority are unwholesome for the child’s developing personality and as such are to be avoided? How far can an average parent go in making everything agreeable to the child? The intelligent parent, in his role as an educator, does, sooner or later, come to understand that if the family atmosphere is one of affectionate trust, all types of control tend to soften themselves into friendly suggestions and children readily respond to them. If care is taken to train the child to proper obedience, to shape its impulses to healthy reactions, duty will become something pleasant to perform. The mixture of parental authority and the child’s liberty should be judicious. This problem that parents face in particular has to be appreciated with discernment and sympathy by the teacher.

The teacher should not scoff at the parent when he puts on an air of authority. The parent knows all about the school from the child which has given the picture as it sees it. The teacher’s feelings about the child and the school should also be made known to the parent. This only the teacher can do. If the parent is in full possession of the facts about the school, both from the point of view of his child and the point of view of the teacher, he will be in a position to cooperate better with the teacher. If there is lack of harmony between what the child is taught at school and the experiences it has in the home, the sufferer will be the child and both the parent and the teacher will have abdicated their duties.

In setting up standards for discipline both the parent and the teacher have a great part to play and they cannot fulfil their role if they part ways and go in opposite directions.

CHAPTER 4 TOWARDS BETTER UNDERSTANDING

Parent-teacher cooperation is based on a, bilateral understanding of a triangular relationship. The parties concerned are the parent, the teacher and the child. The understanding has to centre round the growing personality of the child. It is wrong to assume that the child has no inner conflicts. The youngster at school has deep feelings about many matters. It is dangerous to take a casual view of these feelings. It is the duty of the parent and the teacher to view the feelings of the child discerningly, grasp the emotional upheavals in its mind and help the child in its troubles. If parent-teacher cooperation has to be of value to the child, it is very essential to find out what the child thinks of itself. This may prove to be a difficult task because the child may not be in a position to give cogent expression to its innermost thoughts and feelings.

But an intelligent diagnosis will reveal the psychology of the child. Once the psychological condition of the child is grasp-ed, an intelligent teacher or parent can mould the child on the basis of his understanding. The necessary encouragement or corrective can be given so that the child is able to grow.
A peep into the child’s world will show its thoughts about school, its thoughts about home, its thoughts about teachers and its thoughts about parents, among many other things.

Normally the child thinks very highly of its parents and tries to imitate them in all possible ways. A stage follows when the child begins to criticise parental actions. In between there are also occasions when parents create feelings of irritation, anger and resentment in children. The child is not in a position to know what is good for its growth and what is harmful. Then there is the school about which child has its opinions. It compares conditions at school with the conditions at home. It compares its own home with the home of a class-mate. The ever-widening circle of friends gives rise to social problems and the relative affluence or poverty of its companions, their energies and failings, their ability at school or their backwardness, all these factors influence the child’s mind. The teacher in the course of his instruction should be aware of these factors and in his guidance should take care to give the place of honour to the child’s own home.

Not the least important is the teacher’s attitude to the child’s attitude to him. It should be a matter of great interest to him to know what the child thinks of him and in the event of the child having a bad opinion of him or harbouring some feelings of ill-will towards him, he should try and set the matter right. Nothing is too trivial and if the teacher slurs over these factors thinking that they are of no consequence, it is the child who will suffer. The teacher himself should be on his guard as to how he behaves in the presence of his students.

He may make a casual remark, which the child may take to heart and form, on the basis of that remark, a coloured view of the teacher. It is true that the teacher has to regard the class as a unit and not attach any over importance to any particular individual; but to the extent that each child under his care should receive the fullest benefit of his instruction, it is essential that he should have the growth of each child in mind when he takes the whole class with him. He should have a gift of sympathy and without this sympathy his influence on the growing child will be practically nil and his capacity for cooperation with the parent negligible.

There are different types of parents, although one may say that the average parent in the country is generally a very-accommodating man. But whether a parent is accommodating or otherwise, he still likes some individual attention to be paid to his child. This is natural and the teacher who retorts that he has other children to look after also does not adopt the correct approach. He should expect parents to say that individual attention should be given to their children and point out to them that if his individual attention is to be of any value, parents also should lend a hand and supplement his own efforts. Given that the teacher has the requisite personality and the ability to bring home to the children their responsibility, there will be no difficulty at all in obtaining the cooperation of a majority of parents.

It may be said that in the matter of parent-teacher cooperation extra burden is laid on the teacher as if the teacher does not have his own problems. Economically, professionally and socially, he encounters problems. Besides, even if he is willing not to let these problems worry him unduly and visit parents in their homes with the intention of giving his best attention to the children under his care, things are not too simple for him. It is very likely that the parents in question will take the view that the teacher is angling for some private tuition. On top of all these problems, the periods of teaching work he needs must do, the frightening quantity of correction work to be completed, and the absence of sympathetic understanding on the part of authorities, all these do not make the teacher’s position very enviable.

But conditions are fast changing and the teacher in India is bound to receive better recognition in the years to come. Society is already giving him a nook in its corner. Class-teaching is gradually receding into background as better textbooks and other means of effective teaching and learning are taking the field. The teacher, instead of being the old pedagogue, has begun to assume the role of a director of studies.

For the good of their own children, it is imperative that parents should be aware of this situation. They should view the changes that are now being brought about with hope, and cooperate with the teachers instead of taking up cudgels against them and subjecting the schools to unconstructive
condemnation.

CHAPTER 5 DIVISION OF LABOUR

There is no doubt that in parent-teacher cooperation there is plenty of room for discussion. The discussion should bring out the individual characteristics of the children in a class. Individual differences as in the case of intelligence are the results of heredity and environment. When the teacher takes heredity into consideration, he should be on his guard, for children may be either better or worse than either of the parents, and children of the same parents may vary in their capacities. Instances of an elder brother faring very poorly in a class and the younger one distinguishing himself are very common and teachers have experience of this phenomenon.

Coming to the individual child himself, he may be very good, say, in mathematics, while he may not have the skill to write even a simple composition in English. How far do environments affect individual difference? It is quite possible that children coming from affluent homes are more intelligent than those from poor homes. Very often it is contradicted by the fact that the poor students do much better work through added motivation. If parents are brought together and are made to understand the differences among themselves and the conditions prevailing in their different homes, the resultant comprehension of the situation in so far as individual children are concerned, will lead to beneficial results.

It only conditions were ideal, our classes should not be divided as they are divided now according to differences in age. Individual differences in achievement should be the criterion and classes should be divided into bright, average and backward pupils. In the matter of individual instruction in accordance with. the varied abilities of each pupil, the home has a lot to contribute. The work done at school should be related to the guidance given at home, and the child’s programme both at school and at home should interact and be regulated. Parents. are capable of realising the difficulties that teachers have to face as a result of individual differences in children, if these differences are correctly brought to their attention. Students. who have exceptional ability and show special aptitudes can be encouraged to proceed farther than the limited syllabus of the particular class to which they belong. The slow progress. of the rest of the class need not in any marked degree stultify them. In the same way children who are slow to make progress, in spite of being condemned as dullards, can be, with patience on the part of the teacher and understanding on the part of the parents, rehabilitated till they become confident.

These are the days of planned production and planning for plenty. We have come to realise that there is no work, however stupendous or intricate, that cannot be divided according to a plan. In schools where the aim is to afford opportunities for the pupils to develop a wholesome personality,. the task of education is divided among various teachers who-each in his own way conforming, of course, to a general set pattern-teach various subjects.

The subjects taught, though they may have come to us from the trivium and quadrivium: prescribed by the Greeks of old, do even now have functions. other than their mere content. But the fact remains that as. years advance both teachers and parents tend to belittle the doctrine of formal discipline and greater and ever greater emphasis is being laid on the content. No doubt, we do pay lip-service to the formation of character and discipline. Such an unhealthy trend should not be allowed to continue un-checked. Teachers of languages, arithmetic, science, social studies and art now-a-days undertake to educate children, and such a division of labour, rather than competing with each other, is helping to achieve harmony in the child. When such a division of labour is already in existence, the parent too can be brought into it.

A great educationist once said that the family was like a burning glass which concentrated human sympathies on a point, which was the child. The love of the family stands for human sympathy, and to everyone who comes across it, the budding nature of a child is a matter of deep and tender interest. Parental sympathy and love are the very seeds of morality and among those related by blood, in the narrow circle of family life, due to common aims, common hope and common fears, there springs up a unity and sympathy, based upon affection. In well-regulated families, the individuality of a child finds room for play; but where family life is dis-harmonious, it leaves evil effects on the child. The attitude and outlook of the family, its sense of values-these shape the mental world of the child.

When a family gets a child, the State gets a citizen., The birth of a child, therefore, marks the beginning of parental responsibility as well as the responsibility of the teacher on whom will fall the lot of educating the child. In cases where parental responsibilities have been neglected and as a consequence the child pays the price by developing into an antisocial being, the society does not deny the right of the State to sentence the child to a term in a Borstal school. The conclusion, therefore, is inescapable that mere schooling alone is mot education. The home is the real educator. Schools should open home fronts, in them and parents must be induced, if not compelled, to shoulder their responsibilities as co-educators.

CHAPTER 6 INTERVIEWING PARENTS

To the average teacher, the parent is not generally a very attractive person. The parent’s function, to many a teacher, is to harass the schoolmaster by various means. This is due to the fact that this type of teacher is an isolated person who-does not see even his own headmaster, or meet any of his. colleagues and is unable, in any case, to see himself as a parent. He forgets too that the trustees running the school, the local authority in charge of the school and the inspectorate under which the school functions, are all made up of parents. If parent-teacher cooperation is insisted upon, this type of teacher will necessarily have to alter his views and bring himself into constant touch with the parents of the children who are in his care.
While we stress the importance of the influence of the home in the bringing up of the child, we have got to be careful at the same time about attributing undue importance to it. There are bound to be certain homes where such desirable factors as can help the child’s growth may be totally absent, in which case it becomes the teacher’s duty to devise methods on his own and protect his pupils from harm. There are pupils who are naturally anti-social in their behaviour.

Then there are children who are good at studies and in their general behaviour, but have a congenital knack for flouting authority. The teacher, when he comes across these situations, must be prepared to contend with unfavourable home environments. The task is not easy. Nay, it is beset with great difficulties. There have been instances of young, idealistic but inexperienced teachers-whose motives in reforming then pupils cannot be questioned-having unsatisfactory interviews with the parents and frustrated in their attempts, give up the teaching profession altogether. To cite a recent experience, a boy of 14 was suspected of stealing a fountain pen in the class.

His teacher, anxious not to give too much publicity to the incident, went straight to the parent to apprise him of his strong suspicion of the child’s guilt, thereby ignoring the normal practice of bringing the incident to the attention of the headmaster. The parent’s reaction was one of indignation. He was offensive to the teacher, who felt humiliated and made an announcement in the class that he had decided to fast for three days in order to purify the mind of the boy who had stolen the pen. Five minutes later the guilty boy admitted that he had stolen the pen and proceeded forthwith to produce it from his pocket. When this reached the ears of the parent in question, he asserted that his boy had been bamboozled and coerced to do what he did.

To mention another incident, an eleven-year old student, was observed to be in the habit of skipping his classes in the afternoons. The popular belief was that he was frequently to be seen at a nearby cinema. Twice he was punished in the class, with extra detentions, but to no effect. Whenever asked for an explanation, he pleaded indisposition. The matter was brought to the attention of the boy’s parent. Here again the reaction of the parent was not helpful. In fact, the parent upheld his boy’s interest in films and quoted from his own life as a student. He said that he had become a prosperous business man because in his life, as a student, he had realised that there was no point in being a goody-goody boy and had taken upon himself to acquire a thorough knowledge of the world. So it came as no surprise to him that his son had also followed his steps. The teacher who had gone to report was dumb-founded and returned to the school tongue-tied.

A teacher knows only too well that he cannot understand a child’s action until he comes to know the causes behind it.
In the same way while dealing with parents the teacher ought to try and find out the root causes of their reaction to them.
Considerable patience and tact is required on the part of the teacher. He should not mind facing a rebuff or two.

It should also be understood that parents do not necessarily resent the teacher’s good intentions. But whatever be the failings of their children, they are apt to blame someone else for them. This is not unpardonable and is indeed so common that blaming someone else for any unsatisfactory state of affairs covers other aspects of day-to-day life as well, so much so that it will not be possible for the teacher to resolve emotional tensions in a very short time. But the teacher should be able to suggest several practical remedies and capture the understanding attention of the parents.

There is yet another type of parent who neither resents the interference of the teacher nor lays the blame on others for his child’s failings, but simply promises to do whatever necessary himself. He will even express his gratitude to the teacher for his timely intercession-but there his cooperation will end. In such cases the parent’s reluctance to take the proferred help of the teacher is usually due to two possible states.

One is that the parent has already gained experience in dealing with his child’s problems in the home itself and secondly it may be his defence mechanism asserting itself and impelling him not to feel obliged to another person. In this situation, if the teacher is in possession of a thorough analysis of the child’s behaviour and its complexes and difficulties, he will be able to provide opportunities for the parent also to obtain a true insight into the working of the child’s mind.

To sum up, in parent-teacher cooperation, the teacher should bear in mind the following:-

1. Realisation and understanding of the parent’s point of view. This entails an insight into the conditions prevailing in the home and the parent’s behaviour.
2. A thorough study of the child’s problems and its abilities and individual differences.
3. When such necessity arises, the teacher’s willingness and ability to guide the parent and help him emotionally to overcome his sense of inadequacy that has been the result of a series of failures.

To enable such conditions to prevail, there should be many committees of teachers functioning under the guidance of the headmaster or the principal, so that some of the predominant behaviour problems of students may be discussed and solved. Each school should have a set programme of group discussion among parents and at the same time have facilities for individual counselling. Finally, if teachers make available their special abilities and resources ungrudgingly so that the community can utilise them to enhance the personalities not only of the students but also of the parents, then the basic needs of true education can be met and the reward gained in the noble endeavour will be the growth of wholesome personality in children.

CHAPTER 7 PARENTS’ EXPECTATIONS

The average parent in India pays fees for his children and expects the teacher to do the rest. Very often he grumbles that he is not getting his money’s worth. He has only himself to blame, for the remedy lies in his own hands. It is his duty to his children that he should have some idea of the happenings in the school. He can be, if only he would care to be, the most respected inspecting authority.

Idealism and theories apart, the parent wants that his child should be able to make a comfortable living. When the parent expresses such an aim, which the teacher may consider to be purely utilitarian, there is bound to be a conflict. It is up to the teacher not to be led away by doctrinaire and professional educational philosophy.

If a parent is asked why he does not actively participate in discussions on school curriculum and methods of teaching, his answer is that he finds that teachers are not free agents, and that they are the slaves of time-tables and syllabus imposed upon them by some unknown authority. But today progressive schools, and particularly our Basic schools, do have latitude enough for teachers to show their initiative, and this should be brought to the notice of parents, and to some extent, parents’ wishes and suggestions will have to be put into prac-tice. Modern methods in education do enable us to fit in the parents’ requirements concerning utility.

Many parents now believe that education at the Secondary level, that is, after the children have mastered their “three R’s”, is generally inclined to be chaotic. And they know too that they are finally responsible for the later careers of their sons. The advice of teachers at this stage is most likely to be idealistic. At such a juncture, it is not at all difficult to understand why parents tend to consider a teacher’s expert advice to be anything but merely formal, for the parent is anxious about the utilitarian aspect of education.

In this connection, we cannot but recognise a fact. In the various types of schools in India, and particularly in the field of Elementary and State-aided Secondary education, the curricula and methods of teaching are drawn up by people of high academic experience, who unfortunately are not in touch with the common people. The only remedy for such a state of affairs is for the common people, through their spokesmen, the parents, to make their voice heard and this can be done if every school has a Home Front functioning actively in it. Perhaps it is a fact, and a genuine fact too, that many parents fail to get what they have a right to expect from our present sys. tem of Secondary education. We, teachers, have every justification to claim that such a state of affairs is not entirely our fault. Except perhaps in some progressive schools, our hands are tied by too rigid and regimented a system. The parent has every right to protest that efficiency has suffered due to various experiments in education that have been and are being conducted in recent years. There again, rather than protesting from far away, he should make his voice felt inside the citadel, inside the school. Protestations can be most effective, if there is active and purposive parent-teacher cooperation.

Perhaps parents whom we have to deal with cannot be expected to play their role so effectively in the larger context.
Let us meet them, fully realising their status as co-educators when they approach us on minor details. The majority of them are invariably worried about the poor progress recorded by their children at studies. Such parental visits will go a long way in teachers giving greater personal attention to children needing it, and in imbuing a greater sense of self-confidence in the children.

Parents visit schools with the complaint that children are loaded with such an amount of home work that they feel every vestige of initiative in the young ones is knocked out or irreparably damaged. They claim, and sometimes very logically too, that five or six hours at school should be made to devote to books, and at home scope should be found for them to prosecute interests that the children have adopted as hob-bies. Such parents usually are affluent and the children concerned are invariably intelligent. Teachers should not find it difficult, with the cooperation of the authorities concerned, to find a solution for such complaints.

At the same time, there is the parent who points out that present-day schools do not assign enough home work. He is keen that his children should be at work all the time, and it will be seen that his economy is such that it does not allow him to spend anything appreciable for the entertainment of his children. A resourceful teacher can easily put such a youngster into the habit of wider reading, or he may encourage the student to do some experiments in the physical or chemical laboratory of the school. Such a measure, while satisfying the parent, will go a long way in the true education of the child too.

There are parents-but their number is small-who wisely consider it a necessity to let the teacher know of some special conditions prevailing in the home. The father may be an officer who has to tour extensively and as such, there is not much of adult male guidance at home. The teacher is requested to let the student know that he is aware of it. Or it may be that either the father or the mother is a permanent invalid and the student has to play the part of a nurse at home. The teacher in such a case is requested to excuse the student for not being able to devote enough time for home work. Such cases can easily be understood by a teacher and all possible tensions obviated in the child’s mind.

Sometimes there is the parent who has made a study of educational psychology and considers himself to be an expert in the education of his child. These are usually difficult customers to deal with. They have to be patiently tolerated, and it may also be that the teacher can learn something from him.
Among such, there are those who claim that methods of teaching practised today, even including the principle of sparing the rod, only help to make children into good-for-nothing milk sops. They proudly proclaim the various instances when they themselves had experienced the slashes of a cane from a great disciplinarian and refer to them as the turning point of their lives. When confronted with such parents, if the teacher is not trained in the art of interviewing parents, there is the likelihood of tempers getting frayed. Such parents like to hear their own talk, and the clever teacher ought not to grudge them the pleasure.

Let us round off this chapter with some important tips to young teachers. In parent-teacher consultation and coopera-tion, the following points have to be carefully observed if it is to be of benefit to the child:

1. Allow the parent to talk voluntarily.
2. Do not be too doctrinaire in your own idealism.
3. Don’t let the parent have the idea that you know more of the child than he does.
4. When you have a suggestion to make, see that there is more than one way open to the parent for the suggestion to be carried out or the advice adhered to.

The home can become a co-educator only if the school sympathises and realises the difficulties that the home has to contend with.

 

CHAPTER 8 OPEN DOORS TO PARENTS

In the preceding chapters, we have discussed the difficulties and hurdles that have prevented parents from actively participating in the education of their children in schools. Parent-teacher cooperation can be brought into being in all schools in India whether they be village schools or public schools.
Neither will such a cooperation unduly tell upon the difficult financial situation in the country. There will have to be more teachers in schools, for, if teachers are required to participate meaningfully in getting to know of the difficulties of parents, and thereby be of help and guidance to individual students under their care, the present work-load on teachers will have to be reduced. Teachers should have only four teaching periods per day, and on the computation that he will have correction work for an hour, he should have one hour everyday to be devoted entirely to interviewing parents by appointment and going into the individual cases of his students.

The second essential would be that our teacher-training schools and colleges should have parent-teacher cooperation as a compulsory subject in their courses of studies. The Government and other local authorities should recognise parent-teacher associations and give due weight to the decisions arrived at by such bodies. Such associations should have the right to utilise the school building for their discussions and entertainments connected with furthering parental interest in the education of their children.

The fear that may be expressed by many that such rights conferred on parents may develop into naked and bare-faced interference in the day-to-day running of the school is unfounded. Local factions in the community and the misunderstanding and ill feelings among members of the staff may often culminate in the undoing of a school, but the active cooperation of parents in the welfare of their children can bring about only good to the institution.
The following are some methods of putting parent-teacher cooperation into active practice:-

1. Progress reports of students at the end of every month indicating not only the child’s achievements in the studies but also bearing upon his cleanliness, sociality, willingness to work in cooperation with other children and other such traits of character, to be sent to the parents; and at the same time inviting suggestions from parents if they have anything to say on the matter.
2. Inviting parents to witness physical training displays by children and tournaments in various games. Proficiency gained by a child at a particular game, or special aptitude shown at a particular co-curricular activity, to be brought to the notice of the parent.
3. Sufficient notice given to the parent regarding the weaknesses of particular branches of learning, so that the annual promotion or detention card will not be sprung on the parent as a surprise. When the weakness of a child is being indicated to the parent, steps taken by the school to remedy the weakness should be clearly mentioned and the parent advised to do what is expected of him.
4. Parents requested to come over and discuss specific issues regarding their children.
5. Parents of children of one particular class at a time, invited to have general discussions with the teachers in charge of various subjects in that class. Discussion may centre round textbooks, curricula, medical examination, progress of children, projects undertaken by the class, examinations and various other matters directly pertaining to the welfare of the children.
6. Talks by parents. These can develop either into forum discussions or panel discussions. In these, if teachers too take part, the exchange of views may be beneficial to both.
7. Celebration of House Days. As the very name implies, it is an attempt to bring the spirit of the home into the school, where the housemaster plays the role of the senior member of the family. The optimum number of students in a house is twenty-five to thirty. It has been very often noticed that inter-house rivalry in school built up on perfectly healthy lines very soon spreads into the home and parents get to know of the doings of almost every house in the school.

The suggestions enumerated above constitute only a drop in the ocean. As civic consciousness and education spread in India, parent-teacher cooperation is bound to come to the fore. But now, the Indian teacher has not only to initiate the beginnings of such a cooperation, but he or she will have to canvass support and encouragement from the co-educators in the homes. The Indian teacher can and will do it.

 

The Teacher and the Parent by Rabindra Menon
Ministry of Education, Government of India.
1959.