The New Syllabus

There’s been a lot made in the news in recent times about systemic issues in our education system. As I understand it, there seems to be a popular trend of negative judgment made by parents against teachers for not “doing their job,” with parents often blaming them for their child’s poor performance at school. Now I’m not a parent, so from that perspective I can only watch from the sidelines. But one of my strengths is having strong opinions on things I know little about. And I gotta say, I think I’m on the parents’ side with this one. Because although I’m not a parent, I am an adult (more or less). And as an adult, I understand how difficult the world can be. Not only do you have to work hard, you also have all the distractions available in the digital age—YouTube, Facebook, not to mention emotionally charged TV like The New Housewives of New Jersey (will Melissa and Teresa ever mend their friendship?!!). My point is, who has time to raise a child properly with all this going on? So it seems fair to say it’s not the parents’ fault if their kid is a little underdeveloped or starved for attention. And it seems a natural conclusion that it’s up to the teacher to pick up the slack. Furthermore, as some parents like to remind us, it is they who essentially pay teachers’ salaries. And so we gotta make those parents happy with their child’s progress, so school