You Know What the Problem Is?

That’s what he asked me.

Like bait on a hook.

Like waiting for a bite.

It started with a standard chat. How is school going? How many days are left? Ordinary small talk. This wasn’t a close friend or a confidante, not even a friend on social media, so I offered up the standard fare. Something like fine and good. Kids are great. But in the pause between one answer and the next he tried to launch a bomb.

“You know what the problem is?” he asked.

“What’s that?” I kicked back.

“The parents.”

“Really?”

“They’re always…”

I stopped listening for a few seconds. I wondered why fine, good, and great implied that I had a problem with anyone. I had no idea what he said until I jumped back in with some retort about having a really good relationship with parents over the years. And that was the end of that. But it got me thinking about how much we seem desperate for someone to blame for nothing in particular. Just generally and retroactively.

A few years back, I remember listening to a conversation between middle school teachers who were frustrated about their underperforming kids. They started commenting on the elementary teachers, presuming that someone somewhere dropped the ball. Maybe so. But also, maybe not.

Initially, that’s how I felt when I landed my first gig teaching fourth grade math. I wondered why so many kids didn’t know their multiplication facts. But continuing to feel that way, like some other teacher, some other grade, some other responsible person failed, was a foolish and unproductive emotion. So I simply took the kids I was given, loved them, and accepted that my job was to do the best I could with the time I had. We’re all trying to leave a positive mark and hoping something sticks. Or at least I think we are.

I’ll never forget one of my good friends walking into a classroom at my old school and telling me he had an idea. He wanted to write five positive parent emails each week. He felt like parents always hear the negative, and he wanted to turn the tables. Give them something to smile about. First month at my new school, one of our amazing coaches blocked out 10 minutes at the start of each grade-level meeting so we could write a positive email to a parent. Pretty much confirmed that I was in the right business and the right school.

This is what we do.

This is what we live for.

This is why we’re here.

It’s hard to say how many students I’ve taught over the past twelve years. Maybe 2,000. Maybe 3,000. Somewhere in between? Who knows. But here’s what I can tell you for sure. I can list on one hand the number of parents with whom I’ve ever had a serious conflict. I don’t mean that we always talk about flowers and butterflies. Sometimes we really do have to deal with the challenges of a child. But I mean a real conflict, where the parent simply dislikes me and wants to make sure I know how much I suck. One of them was an elementary mom whose daughter said I wasn’t a “fun” math teacher, like the one she had in the prior year. It was a whole thing. But if I’m telling the truth, I actually lost sleep over that one. Not because I was angry with the mom, but because I genuinely felt like I had let down her child. Turns out, I spent the next few years focusing on ways to better engage and entertain my kids no matter what I was teaching, which is hard to do, but worth the effort. It took a harsh and potentially unfair criticism of my job and my craft to make me better at what I do for the next round of kids.

My point is this. Parents aren’t the problem. I’ve never once thought they were the problem. In fact, I’m that rare sort of creature who doesn’t mind when a conference goes long or starts early. I enjoy the conversation and the chance to build relationships, to build trust, to work in tandem on the success of every child.

But some of you may disagree. You may see the things I write from time to time and wonder. So let me address that.

There’s a big difference between what I do on a daily basis, working hand in hand with moms and dads, aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas, big sisters and big brothers, and responding to a mob of irrational, angry adults whose behavior threatens the health and sanity of this daily labor. For example, tell us the victims of a school shooting are child actors and you’re gonna face the wrath of every teacher who cried on their behalf. Tell us this generation is destined to fail and you’re gonna hear a laundry list of reasons we know they’ll succeed. Point fingers and poke fun at a child wearing a mask and we might start looking for the number to Will Smith. And by God, if you tell us we’re the threat, we’re the risk, we’re the danger to children, you’re begging for the best of us to leave this profession, to leave your sons and daughters in the hands of men and women who you know will never care nearly as much tomorrow as we do right now, today.

So there it is. To every mom, every dad, every guardian, every parent, you are loved, you are valued, you are heard. This thing we do is a partnership. Always has been. Always will be. So long as we both shall trust.