This morning I read a tweet from Bill Ferriter (@plugisin):
Nothing has made me more responsive and understanding as a teacher than being the parent of a kid who isn't always a perfect student. School is an incredible struggle for her/us.
That helps me to rethink my own practices to ensure that every kid experiences success.
— Bill Ferriter (@plugusin) October 26, 2020
I have two awesome kids, both currently in university, that approached K-12 school very differently. One was an overachiever who always had to do well… ‘tell me what I need to do to get the best mark’. The other is also bright and wants to do well, but is happy to find her own path there. She’s more likely to put work off, but will be disappointed if she doesn’t do as good as she could.
They both did well in school, but they both had their own struggles as all students do. One such struggle they both had was math. Neither of them enjoyed doing math and we ended up getting tutors for both of them at different times.
It’s a massive shot to my ego getting a math tutor for my daughter in Grade 9 Math when that’s a subject I taught. But I couldn’t help her without tears and frustration. I was always showing it wrong. It took all the patience I had, and that wasn’t enough.
On the flip side, I know that it wasn’t always easy for our kids to be daughters of two educators. We deal with kids all day, and sometimes when we got home, we were kinda ‘done’. We knew every trick in the book, and they didn’t always get away with much that their friends could. I could share more on this, but want to respect the privacy of my kids.
Bill’s tweet, shared above, made me think of two things. First, it’s not always easy being a parent as well as a teacher, while not letting the teacher get in the way of parenting. Secondly, being a parent and watching your child struggle can make you a better teacher… it gives you perspective on how something that you as a teacher might think is simple, can become a huge challenge for a kid at home. It can make you question the value of homework, and it can remind you that kids have struggles that you don’t see at school.
Parenting is a humbling experience, and it can be an experience that makes you a better teacher.
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Related: 7 Parenting Tips for Learning at Home ~ Available on YouTube and as a podcast.
