What Parents Need to Know About Teachers and Teaching

Parents, Teachers, and Schools #1

Parents want the best education for their children and many schools have splendid support from the communities their serve. “Good” schools are a major point taken into consideration by parents when seeking a home in a new town. But nice well-appointed, attractive communities do not always guarantee excellence in education. New buildings, computer labs, modern libraries, and the latest in technology does not necessarily equal school success.

No doubt, certain minimal material items contribute to a child’s education, but parents often confuse appearance with quality. Beautiful schools do help create an atmosphere conducive to learning, but there’s much more to instructional success. How good of an education depends profoundly on the knowledge and preparation of those involved in instruction – principals, teachers, aides, librarians, etc. Also, there are important roles filled by secretaries, custodians, and anyone who works in the school and those personnel who support the school at the district office. This article is focused on the instructional staff at the school who typically have greatest.

Bias and Local Schools

I’ve worked with teachers of all levels of skill and preparation, and in my experience great teachers are scarce. Parents tend to rate community schools higher than they do schools generally. This indicates a bias in favor of local schools. Such bias can lend itself to parents being less critical of local schools. Parents who attend carefully to school policies and procedures are assets to schools, although the school may not appreciate or value of well-informed parents.

Those not involved in teaching as a career typically trust teachers to do the correct things in the classroom, but good teaching is complex involving skills is the psychology of learning, child development, statistical procedures (for grading), test construction, behavioral psychology, and much more. Even teachers who study hard and learn well are influenced to some degree by what they observed when they were students themselves. Teaching is not correctly perceived by students, who see primarily the teacher presentation. They realize that teacher manage classes differently, grade differently, and vary in lecture style, but they don’t dwell on it – teaching is teaching.

Truthfully the student experience of teaching results in lots of old and incorrect methods being passed down through the generations. There is a large body of modern teaching principles that many teachers either don’t take seriously or don’t know. Teachers aren’t usually given salaries based on how well they teach but on how long they teach. Therefore, the reward is for longevity rather than improvement. Teachers are evaluated, but the evaluations are usually done by people they know and who are often friends. The major evaluative technique is based on watching a teacher present a lesson and checking off certain skills. Test construction, grading procedures, knowledge of new information, etc. are often ignored.

Common Bad Teaching Practices

The assumption that all teachers everywhere know what they are doing is risky. Parents need to be armed with some basics about good and bad practices in the classroom and be willing to address the issues teachers, administrators, and at school functions when appropriate. The major changes in education over the decades have been in what is taught, but how things are taught often remains perilously stagnant. To be fair, parents should research the topics below to gain a more comprehensive understanding.


You might be surprised that the subjects below are not well-understood by all teacher. Remember, that education is not a constitutional responsibility of the federal government. As public education has become available to virtually all citizens since the middle of the 19th century, states developed a variety of approaches. Many practices were not based on research – indeed, “common sense” assumptions about learning often provided the impetus for instructional practices and common sense can often be misleading or wrong.


Articles and links about the following topics will be provided as this page is developed.

No. 1: Reasons for not Grading Homework

by Harvey Craft

The most common reason for grading homework is because students expect it to be graded. This expectation is responsible for the teacher belief that, "If I don't grade it, they wont do it!" Grades are for assessment of learning, and much homework is not about learning rather, its about doing.


If one removes the expectation, why would we give a grade on an activity that has all of the defects and problems of homework? So, let's look at what's wrong with homework.

• Homework easily can be copied from a classmate.
• Students do not have equal resources for completing homework.
• Many students do not have Internet access which is often needed for homework.
• Many students do not have the bare essentials like a proper place at home to study or parents who can or will help.
• Homework is often more of an indicator of effort than learning.
• Frequently homework is merely checked off if students have it but not graded. These checks are, by mysterious methods, "converted" into grades.
• Of all student work homework assignments are the most likely to receive zeros. The accumulation of zeros can unfairly skew the total grade fair below the total grade as indicated by tests.
• The effects of zeros on beginning learners can place many dangerously at-risk. Failure does not motivate, but frustrates and discourages.
• Homework is often assigned over weekends and holidays thereby interfering with family plans. Kids need a break.
• Many students have nights with hours of homework. This can be counterproductive, especially for young learners.
• Homework is often assigned for punitive reasons.
• If it is known that a student won't (or can't) do homework, continuing to assign it and giving zeros without intervention is wrong! 
• Homework is a formative assessment. Formative assessments are not intended to be graded.
• Teachers can save time by not grading homework.
• Teacher often don't coordinate homework assignments with each other and students may have multiple assignments due the same day.
• Many teachers assume that homework develops responsibility. Not so! Responsibility is primarily developed at home by good parenting. 

Parents may find it hard to believe that teachers have varying and often incorrect concepts about homework, but they do. When homework seems to be a problem, consider the list above and discuss your particular issue(s) with the teacher. You might be the only parent that the teacher ever talked to that had specific and valid points about homework.

THE HOMEWORK MYTH: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing, (Da Capo Books, 2006)