PATIENCE
Teaching the Parent within your Students and Teaching your Students
Parents are the people who raise you. In some families the biological relationship can really be grandparents, uncles, aunts, neighbors, cousins, or family friends; but the “role of the parent” (regardless of the biological relationship) is to help, protect, provide, nurture, encourage, love, care, forgive and prepare children to eventually live independently and be responsible for their actions. Students are playing the role of parent with themselves as the interact with their friends, and the adults within their sphere of influence.
Children are role models for their friends, family, church and community. How children dress, talk, walk, help, care, and learn is important to those in their families and communities. The best role models for young children is older children, and the best role models for older children are teenage children. It is amazing how many different roles children play throughout their childhood and how dependent families become over time with the responsibilities children fulfill on a daily and weekly basis.
In the classroom the student needs first to be responsible for their behavior, their achievement, their interaction with others and their respect for their teacher and classmates. Eventually every student in every class will be a parent or an adult member of some organization whether it is a family, church, school, or community organization. One of my mentors felt that for best results with people is to “treat youth like adults and adults like youth.” Talents, knowledge and information that students have is always underestimated by the adult community. At the same time the adult community is constantly looking for the “fountain of youth” in hopes of recapturing those fun years of their teens and twenties. Both groups suffer from the constant agony of not being able to attain their goals: One is young and wants to be treated like they are old and the other is old and want to act like they are young.
Although the classic vision of a student is a one that is of school age, students can be of all ages; and attitude has more to do with age than the length of time you have been breathing on the planet. Disease, accidents, and death occur with the young and old alike on all continents of the world. Too often we are totally consumed by the physical aspects of life and forget about the emotional, psychological, and spiritual aspects of life which are less visible and at times least understood.
If we treat seventh graders like seventh graders, they will act like seventh graders. However, if we ask a seventh grader to teach the class, they take on a leadership role, will be prepared and will be responsible for what they are teaching and how they are teaching. These same seventh graders go home at night and many are “babysitting” younger siblings in the family or younger children in the neighborhood. This is a serious responsibility that requires parental behavior. I have always marveled at the level of responsibility a 13 year-old can demonstrate when given the opportunity.
How many teachers see their students as future parents, future adults, and future teachers? How many student internalize that the reason for learning the information in school is to take leadership role in their families and in their communities? How many students have the vision of their future and who they see themselves being within their community in 10 to 20 years. How many students are dreaming about their 1 goal in life and how they are going to achieve that goal. The teacher needs to be the connection between the seventh graders and their ability to project themselves into the future.
I like the word parent because it suggests caring about others. Adult behavior suggests that one is responsibly taking care of themselves only. My father always said, “The world would be a great place if everyone would take care of themselves.” My mother always said, “The world would be a better place if everyone would adopt one other person to help throughout life.” One of my best friends always says, “What a wonderful world it would be if every family would adopt one family in need.”
Where are the required courses for parenting? What role should good parenting play in our culture or in all cultures? Are children really a priority in families, schools, churches, local communities, and government spending? Cane we break the barriers and the separateness of the have and have nots in our social structure as we move through the 21st century? Is a family that is struggling on all fronts really less important than the family that has everything it wants? Does a large third world family living on almost no cash flow express less love and caring than a middle class American family? Does a child have to be less educated because they live in poverty?
Do children who live in families that “have it all” feel any responsibility to give back to society and help those less fortunate? Will they work in low-income communities? With they become missionaries to foreign countries like Somalia and Jamaica? With they join the Peace Corps, Vista, or the various mission organizations and raise the money necessary to reach out to those who need help? Will these children of privilege as adults adopt children who would otherwise spend their lives in orphanages or worse? What will these fortunate children of privilege feel about foster care and groups like “Heal the Children?”
The answers to these very important questions will be based on the spiritual development of children. Going to church or synagogue one hour per week or one day per week with a tithe in their pocket for the offering plate is one type of religious experience, but reaching out with your soul and touching another soul for a lifetime is a spiritual experience. Schools have a clear hands-off policy on teaching morals, religion, and related topics; however, the nature of a child's soul and the nurturing of that soul is going to be the main motivation that drives the child towards their future direction as an adult.
There are many families where the parents act like children and the children act like adults on the physical, mental, moral, emotional, psychological and spiritual levels. Children of alcoholics struggle on all these levels to cope with the embarrassment and dysfunctional nature of alcoholic families. Many children of alcoholics have to take charge, cleanup, try to make the family appear normal, and in some cases protect the family secrets. When I am aware of these struggles within families, I am always amazed at how hard these children of alcoholic parents have to work to appear normal and fit in with the other children at school.
Many times children of privilege will protect their friends who have families in stress. Children will encourage their parents to foster parent a friend if the situation becomes out of control or they will physically rescue their friend from their family. In many of our classic and religious readings many of our heroes and heroines were young teenagers: Juliet in ROMEO AND JULIET and Mary the mother of Jesus in the New Testament of the Bible.
I often ask my seventh graders who their heroes are in their lives, and for the most part, they tend to be those icons of the pop youth culture: popular music artists and groups, Hollywood icons, sport icons, and television favorites. Seldom do I hear parents, religious leaders, or governmental leaders as the primary heroes. However, when I ask these same seventh graders “who the heroes are of their grandparent's generation”, whose pictures are hanging on their walls at home, and who do they talk most about most with their friends the answer is you, their grandchildren. You are their heroes. At the same time who are the heroes of those younger students in early elementary school. Again, you, the older brothers, sisters, and cousins are the heroes that these younger students who want to be just like you when they are your age.
Students need to be aware of their power of influence, and teachers need to be encouraged to draw out that parent and adult vision within their students so that students can understand why it is so important to know their inner parent and adult self. Survival comes in many shapes and sizes, but ignorance is by far the biggest enemy of most people regardless of age. Teachers are not just teaching students of a specific age or degree level. Teachers are teaching students who live on many levels in their respective lives. These students need a rudder and a sail to keep them on course as they struggle through the storms of life. Doctors, lawyers, and business leaders do not provide students with this rudder, teachers do.