Word: teacher
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...they fleeing? Australian investigators have found stress in the mix, but it's research out of the U.S. - where teacher dropout rates match Australia's - that has homed in on what the main stresses are. Asked to choose the biggest challenge they face, 31% of teachers cited involving parents and communicating with them as their top choice, according to the 2004 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. Some 73% of beginning teachers said too many parents treat teachers as adversaries. Australian educators make the same observations: "I say to some of our parents," says Allen Brooke, principal of Caroline Chisholm...
...better relations, most teachers would argue, resides with parents, who may need to accept that their child isn't gifted, or that there are 27 other children in their darling's class, or that there aren't 45 spots on the school netball team. But teachers won't be surprised to hear that, outside of staff rooms, there seems to be little sympathy for them. A prevalent view is that central to teaching is handling - patiently and professionally - the expectations and anxieties of even the most objectionable parents. "If you can't or won't do that," says Sharryn Brownlee...
...Perhaps the saddest part of teacher? parent breakdown - and possibly a cause of it - is that teachers start out with stars in their eyes. "Time and again," write Sydney University's Ewing and Jackie Manuel, "beginning teachers frame their expectations and their vision of teaching in ways that are redolent of the archetypal odysseys of classical mythology." Perhaps it's just too many viewings of Dead Poets Society, but many student teachers envisage altering the course of young lives: winning over the shy child with empathy and enthusiasm; spotting and nurturing genius in the most unlikely pupils; instilling a love...
...Teachers know all this, but . . . "For too many parents, dolling up and then rolling up in their SUV is a big part of their life," says a Melbourne Year 6 teacher. "School is where they show off." A primary school in Sydney's south has asked its cleaners to pay special attention to the windows of the kindergarten rooms - on the outside they're usually smeared with parents' hand (and nose) prints. In return for their help - and sometimes high fees - some parents want power. Ascham, an exclusive private girls' school in Sydney's east, endured a public row earlier...
...same parents, schools say, who think nothing of demanding one-on-one interviews at 7 a.m. or after dark, whatever suits them. Their tone at these meetings can be accusatory - if my child is struggling or misbehaving, it must be your fault. "The crux of the issue is that teachers are nice people," says Anne, a Sydney Year 1 teacher. "We're nurturers. We like children. We respond to courtesy, not cutthroat corporate behavior." Fionie Stavert, an organizer with the N.S.W. Teachers Federation, says she's cynical enough to believe that in certain parts of Sydney parental complaints about teachers...