Back To The Grind

There I stood, for a record-breaking (my own) eleventh consecutive year, preaching to the choir. Whenever I find myself speaking to a room full of parents, I get murmurs of assent and plenty of nodding. That's because what I am saying to these folks is nothing that they could possibly disagree with: Get your kids to school on time, feed them breakfast, turn off the TV and video games during the week, and every so often ask them what they learned in school that day. These are no-brainers for the parents that manage to get themselves into their child's classroom for Back To School Night. I do not offer any sort of revelations, only the promise of a chance for everyone to achieve if they do their best. More nods and murmurs.
The contrast is seen abruptly by those who didn't make the effort to attend. It's a pretty simple equation, where indifference equals apathy. The parents who get the phone calls from my classroom during the day were not, for the most part, the ones represented by the crowd in my room this evening. Many have jobs or small children or dinner or sports or any number of excuses that roughly parallel those made by the student for missing homework. This is the piece of the puzzle that goes missing. While more and more pressure and scrutiny is piled on student achievement and teacher effectiveness, parents will send their children to school in various shades of readiness, fed or not, clean or not, prepared or not. They go to school because they "have to". I know that I have a certain number of students in my class every year that have a clock attached to them that says as soon as they can stop going to school, they will.
But that's not what tonight was about. I know that the majority of the students in my class have families who value the education they are sent to me to receive. I know that most of the kids in my class will learn more each day than I can teach them by myself. I know that fourth grade is just one stop on the way to someplace better. I know that when they get where they are going their parents will be proud of them, and I'll be happy to have them drop by Back To School Night to brag on themselves one more time.