Like it or not, parents are the most significant teachers

Last updated 13:36, Friday, 24 October 2008

He’s not going to be in school tomorrow so could you get Mrs Whiteboard to email me the homework for French and science?

I overheard this mobile phone conversation in a café in Carlisle. Mum and offspring had obviously just been for a doctor’s appointment.

Ten years ago this would have been unthinkable. I mused on the impact of technology on communication between schools and the parents of their students showing, in this instance, a laudable opportunity for a concerned and interested parent to ensure that her son was kept up-to-date with his studies.

On the other side of the coin I could imagine the harassed class teachers receiving this request while simultaneously trying to teach the intricacies of irregular French verbs or the delights of magnetic induction to 33 year nine gorillas last lesson on a Thursday afternoon.

But it was the next sentence in the conversation that really struck home. “I don’t think he has anything else important on that day.” This made me immediately wonder what was considered less important than French and science. In this simple statement was an unspoken set of value judgements among which was the clear belief that some subjects were important and others were not. This view would inevitably be picked up by her child.

The implications of this superficially innocent remark can have some fairly far reaching effects. Sadly, I teach a subject area to which many parents attach little importance. I can think of several students I have taught who have been “lost” to future success in their musical studies simply because their parents see it as a low priority in their child’s education; consequently so do the children.

Admittedly this can be as a result of difficult option choices or subject combinations rendered impracticable by the school timetable but I have witnessed a string of able, imaginative and skilled students who opted out of continuing what would for them have been an engaging experience with creditable exam results at the end.

It is all too easy to blame parents for the shortcomings of their children but we have to acknowledge that compared to the influence of schools, they hold a vast and crucial influence over the behaviour, attitudes and values of their offspring.

Indeed, current opinion suggests that most of the complex web of factors that go towards making a person who they are is set up in the first three years of life.

Not entirely unexpected, really, if you consider the difference between the newborn baby and the bundle of character and personality exhibited by the average three-year-old.

This is probably the time in your life when you learn the most and at a staggering rate. School doesn’t impinge on this process at all. Even the most basic story read to a child can contain messages which influence the child’s future views and behaviour.

I am thinking here of how I was shown how a story about a farmer sowing seed which was then eaten by crows contained implicit teaching of right and wrong as well as more subtle concepts such as the idea of private property – this is mine and not yours – and that you shouldn’t share things with those who you don’t like.

While schools can seek to bring all their students to their full potential, they cannot compensate for or fully undo what has been established in the early years. They can only work from there onwards. In facing this awesome responsibility parents are not alone.

I can recommend the free Learning Together leaflets, produced by the British Association for Early Childhood (www.early-education.org.uk). After all the most important school is the home and the most significant teacher a child will meet in life is the parent.