I think my main aim with this post was to bring to light the fact that parents are something that need to be taken into consideration when teaching. I think that for me personally, I am much more used to environments where parents demand a lot from teachers. I don’t know if this is harder or not, having never had a full time job, but there’s my opinion.

My aim for this series is, as you say, not to demand that my ideas are the best, but more to prompt people to think about these issues for themselves.

I think that no matter which school you are in there are going to be some parents that you love, and some parents that you don’t so much.

As far as how this will impact the decision of where I’ll teach… I’m not heaps sure.

Hopefully that helps answer some of your questions. And thanks heaps for commenting and getting into the discussion.

I read your blog occasionally and I just stumbled upon this series. It’s been a really interesting read. Personally I am a keen advocate for public schooling, just from my own personal experience, and also because my mum is a public primary school teacher and hard-core member of the NSW Teachers Union! Like you say, parents are the biggest influence on the kids! But she is not a Christian – kids don’t listen to everything their parents say

I just wanted to draw attention to something that I think is weird about this post. Your main message here is clear (consider the parents!), but the implications aren’t. You stop short of saying how parents attitudes need to be taken into account. Should people be avoiding schools with difficult parents so that they can be more effective teachers in schools where kids will listen? Or are you saying people should be carefully preparing themselves if they are going to work in areas where parents do not support their kids in education?

I understand that you don’t want to dictate our responses for us, but my first throught after reading these last three posts has been “Argh!! Parents who don’t care are way too difficult to deal with!”

The difficult parents thing is hard, but it can’t be written off just because it is hard. Often these are parents in systemic disadvantage. They are socially excluded and their kids get caught up in it too. It’s a big problem and as Christians we need to engage with this problem. Of course a single teacher is not going to be able to come in and fix everything with 4.5 hours a day of contact time. But surely a larger group of teachers who are aware of the issues and are keen to reach out to disadvantaged students could make some headway over a longer period of time?

For me this post has opened a huge can of worms. Up until now you have been talking about your own personal decisions about where to teach when you finish uni. You have talked about things that will impact on the amount of direct faith-sharing your get to do with kids and colleagues, and your own spiritual health as your grow as a teacher. But these last three posts have entered into new territory of much more complex social issues. How are these big social issues going to factor into your decision making as a Christian teacher?

That’s my two cents anyway – thanks for letting me rant!

- Spally Moffitt (writing from the land of Social Policy – not teaching!)