Turning a teacher into a parent does not help children
Labour’s Education Secretary was quick to offer a solution to this summer’s riots. Children, Bridget Phillipson suggested, need to be taught how to spot ‘fake news’ and ‘putrid’ online conspiracy theories. Teachers enjoying a well-deserved holiday were no doubt delighted to learn of this new responsibility. But few could have been surprised. After all, for several decades now the default response to every social and economic problem - from climate change to obesity, from racism to tooth decay - has been to ‘put it on the curriculum’.
Ahead of the general election, Labour pledged to introduce supervised toothbrushing for the youngest pupils. Presumably, teachers will be expected to fit this in alongside offering parents advice on the nutritional quality of packed lunches and guidance on when children can be allowed to walk to and from school unaccompanied. As I argue in a report published by Civitas today, the unique roles and responsibilities of parents and teachers have become increasingly blurred. This is to the detriment of adult authority, education and family life.
This blurring of roles extends to the content of lessons. Take sex education. Science teachers have an important role to play in teaching children the biological facts of human reproduction. But over recent decades lessons have expanded to cover far more than this. Many schools now focus on ‘relationships’ rather than biology and ‘sexuality’ rather than simply sex. This marks a shift from teaching subject knowledge to imparting attitudes and values. As protests outside schools in Birmingham in 2019 revealed, not all parents are happy with teachers taking on this task.
When schools assume responsibility for the diet, weight, dental hygiene and mental health of their pupils, and teachers accept it is their job to cultivate ‘correct’ views on fake news, gender, sexuality, race, climate change and the importance of recycling then there is not much left for parents to do. Indeed, in an act of role-reversal, parents are often meant to learn from their more enlightened offspring. This undermines all adults in the eyes of children and sows confusion about where responsibility lies.
Panic over the very small number of children starting school still wearing nappies has become an annual event. Understandably, teachers do not want to have to spend time toilet training four-year-olds. They are right. Although all young children have occasional accidents, it should be down to parents, not reception class teachers to teach children how to use a toilet. But having taken on so much of the parental role it is hard for teachers to pick and choose the tasks they wish to undertake. Why should teachers get to instruct children in the correct way to think about sexuality or immigration but not in how to use a toilet? Why should schools deal with teeth but not nappies?
The concern around school children in nappies shows that undermining parental authority is not without consequences. Reasserting the boundaries between school and home and clarifying the unique roles of parents and teachers will not be easy but it is vital for both education and family life.
Originally published in The Times: https://www.thetimes.com/article/fc5e1c4e-32b3-4d38-ab11-dcbbb89cd70c?shareToken=bb55e598eeeff722b9779fbf3304219d