What School Cannot Teach & The Importance of Parent Involvement

                On a daily basis I always come upon a parent or care giver with a young child talking on their mobile phone.  Usually, I don’t pay attention to the conversations of others on their phones, however, this one instance, the conversation made me cringe.

                The loud expletive laced, bad grammar filled rant that spewed out of the woman’s mouth caused several people to stop, stare and shake their heads.  However, what saddened me was the little boy who had to be no more than five years old, holding the hand of the woman, walking (more like being pulled) with the woman while staring and listening to the conversation.  A few blocks later, I passed by a group of highs school girls who were also involved in a loud expletive rant about another female peer group. 

As I reflected over the events that occurred on my walk, I thought about how there are some things schools can teach.  Schools cannot teach character.  Schools cannot teach appropriate behavior or etiquette.  Schools can only model and instruct character, appropriate behavior and etiquette.  Unless there is support ,modeling and encouragement from the home, young adults will continue to graduate with glaring flaws in character, inappropriate behavior and etiquette. 

Parent involvement is crucial to the overall education of the young adult.  The partnership between parent engagement and education is supposed create “well rounded,” productive citizens.  Young adults upon graduation should not only understand how to apply academically what they have learned to post their high school life.  They should also be individuals who understand the role character, how to interact appropriately in numerous settings and social etiquette will play in their future opportunities.  Only with involvement from parents can young adults become well-rounded, productive citizens.

The flaw in this stream of thought is the assumption that parents understand, teach and model character, appropriate behavior and etiquette.  Knowing all parents do not hold the same values, the question becomes how to work around the differences in values to develop well rounded, productive citizens?