A New Parent Generation: Meet Mr. and Mrs. Gen X

That's the title of an article I'm reading from Ed Digest.

I guess I've dealt mostly with baby boomer parents so far. But I have to get used to the idea that more members of my age group (I'm a Gen X'er) will have kids entering senior high.

This article discusses how baby boomer parents tended to be 'helicopter parents.' They were the ones who hovered over their kids and their school work and activities.

Neil Howe, the author, posits that the Gen X parent takes it a step further; they are 'stealth-fighter parents.'

I honestly can't say that I've come across any like this . . . yet. But a more important question - with Casey graduated and KoKo in 9th grade - is have I become one?

Here are Howe's signs of a 'stealth-fighter parent.'

• They choose when and where they will attack.
  
• Flex workers, they shift their schedules around to attend their child's activities.
• They monitor online grades religiously and freak over one missing assignment.
• They will take their child out of a school or activity if they feel it is not in their best interest.
• They assume that anything immeasurable is untrustworthy.
• They will chaperon a trip or dance not simply for the good of the school but also for the benefit of their child.
• They often think they know more about education than their child's teacher.

Then Howe includes a quote from The Washington Post which I think is hilarious: "' Parental involvement in our schools has become an extreme sport.'" I have not seen this yet in a school setting, but I have witnessed it in athletics (and sadly, I once was the cause, for I made a fool out of myself yelling at an elementary school basketball tournament - the last time I ever acted such a way at a sporting event).

Again, I have not seen much of this in my 12 years. I have dealt with helicopter parents to be sure. I recall one time how I got a disgruntled call a few years ago when I had a senior who got his final research paper back on the last day of class (I no longer return their themes to them on the last day of class). He earned an 80%. In fact, the first half of his paper was great but then it took a nose dive for the final half. This was indicative of his work ethic. He started early and worked hard for the first part of the project. Then he chose to blow off the remaining time.

He must have complained to Mom, obviously remembering how hard he worked on the first half of the paper and conveniently forgetting how he slacked off on the second half.

When Mom called she stated, "I just don't want this to be the last impression he has of his high school career."

Now what the hell do you say to that?

Today, I'd have stuck to my guns and justified the grade, regardless of the impression her son had of it or not.

But I let her guilt me in to re-reading the paper and with that guilt I found a way to award him a few extra points.

That is the last time that will ever happen.

But that's a helicopter parent for you. Today, I would simply say, "His last impression of high school is a very important one because he can use it to make a powerful first impression in college. Learn a lesson and take the entire assignment seriously and not just the first half. Thanks for voicing your concern. Please have your son stop in at his convenience and I will be more than happy to explain this to him."

Now, though, I hand back their final themes either a few days before graduation (so they can have a couple days to recover) or after graduation (for some dumb ass reason we choose to make our underclassmen go an extra week after graduation) the seniors can come back and see their scores. Then if they did terribly, well they're graduated and it's too late to do anything about it now.

I'm not sure, though, how I would handle a stealth-attack.

I have been dealing with parents who watch their child's grade on line religiously, though. Now the parent has every right to do this. I just worry about the impression it's sending. Let me restate that - the unintended (or at least I hope it's unintended) impression it's sending.

Here's what I mean - whenever I have parents in for conferences, I give them a printout of their child's grade. In 99% of the cases, the parents will scan over all of the assignments that have A's and B's next to them and they will stop on the one assignment that is an F. They will make far more out of this F (and it's usually a quiz the student didn't study for or a paper they neglected to do) than the 25 assignments with A's and B's next to them. Honestly, some make more out of the one 15 point assignment that is scored a zero than the 92% the child has for an overall grade in my class.

So what is the unintended impression? Well, the parent goes home and reads the kid the riot act over one missing assignment. Suddenly, the point shifts from actual learning to completing all assignments. I wonder if they'd be happier if their child had a low C for an overall grade but had every assignment in? I'm not sure.

To prevent this, I now printout grade sheets and just edit out the letter grade column for each assignment. It's not worth the hassle.

We touched on this in a Common Prep last week. When did we lose sight of educating a child and begin focusing so much on completing assignments. I just saw an example of this yesterday while subbing in the library. One student - who I have in a class this quarter - misses time and is usually always finishing make up work. Well, there they were on one of the library's computers. They were logged on to the website "hotmath.com" and hastily scrawling down the steps to a math problem. I didn't see them looking back at the problem to make sure they understood how to do it. No. They simply were copying the explanation so that they could turn it in and the teacher would see that they "showed their work" next to the problem.

Wonderful. All learning totally circumnavigated. But, hey, the assignment is in and there is no longer a zero or an F next to it on the internet grade report.

This, I think, is the same drive that leads kids to "doing school," where they don't really learn anything but they get good grades to appease Mom and Dad. If you don't believe me, just ask your kid how many times they've gotten an A in a course yet learned nothing (now I'm not saying a great deal of the blame shouldn't fall on the teacher and school either. It most certainly should. But that's a topic for another article and another blog post!). I think you'll be surprised by what they tell you.

So, how does Howe expect us to deal with Gen X parents?

• Assume no trust. Market to them, spell out the rules, and start relationships early. I find this interesting and it is important to start relationships with parents. But who are we teaching here? The student or the parent. It seems to me that often times the trust is totally lacking. I recall Dad lamenting about the younger generation when I was telling him about some of my run-ins with parents when I first began teaching. He said, "You know when I was young, if I got in trouble on the bus and the bus driver called my dad to tell him about it, Dad didn't debate it. He simply found me guilty and I got a licking. End of story. But now parents seem to want to make it the bus drivers' fault and not the kids!" I think there is some truth to that. I often wonder if a Gen X'er hated school, and now they have kids in school, why should they expect their kids to have any different type of experience. Suddenly, the teachers and administrators are the ones always in the wrong and the kids always are excused. Now, to be fair, the system too enforces this. When we were told that you can't mark a student who has been suspended as unexcused because it is illegal, well, that's about the dumbest damn thing I've ever heard in my entire life. And it totally reinforces the kids are never to blame for anything. But I have to say that building relationships is the key. This year I had the best conferences in my 12 years. Most of these parents I've gotten to know well as their children have come through my classroom (and some have had their last kids come through recently). So when they came in, we were able to really talk and discuss and really strengthen those relationships.
  

• Stress personal accountability and personal contribution. Howe argues that because most Gen X parents work in jobs that stress "bottom-line incentives," schools should work the same way. They work in an economy where if you win a contract, you get a bonus. If you miss a deadline, you're fired. They expect the school to run the same way. They are suspicious of programs or institutions where the status quo holds sway and there never seems to be any change or progress. And they are totally out of luck here. Tenure makes it difficult - if not impossible - to really hold teachers accountable. So change is rare in public education.

• Offer real-time service (the FedEx test). Here is what Howe means by the 'FedEx test' - "If Gen-X parents can get instant, real-time information on something as trivial as a package, why should they stay in the dark about their child's academic performance." This is a legit point. As Howe observes the once a semester parent-teacher conference, twice a quarter progress reports, and one "back to school night" a year don't cut it. I have a plan for dealing with this. This year is the first where I have nearly ever students' cell phone number programmed in to my fine. Dozens text me daily about assignments or observations (Just got a text the other day explaining that they were discussing 'carpe diem' in one class and that was a key theme of our poetry unit the previous semester). My next step in 2010-11 will be to get parents' numbers and text them when assignments go out or when an issue arises. And why not? I email many any way. So why not text them? It's more immediate. Last year, one of my College Comp II students scored 100/100 on her multi-genre research paper. I had been really hard on her writing leading up to this, and she must have really taken that criticism to heart because she totally killed the MGRP. To reinforce how proud I was of this student, I shot a quick email to her mother. Her mother promptly emailed me back and said that her daughter was quite thrilled and had texted her about the grade as soon as she got it back from me! That's how immediate feedback needs to be.

• Present your school as the best parent choice in a competitive market. Maybe this is arrogant, but this is an easy sell. KoKo saw this first hand when she visited. She'll see it again at the senior honors banquet on Thursday, the Evening with the Arts after the honors banquet, the orchestra concert with a member of Trans-Siberian Orchestra next Friday, and then the spring choir concert that is second to none. That's not to say that other schools in the area aren't doing excellent jobs. But they would be hard pressed to match the variety of programs, trips, and technology that we often take for granted.

• Prepare for the modular 'opt-out' consumer and the innovative high-tech competitor. Howe likens a Gen X parents vision of school to that of digital music. Why buy an entire CD when iTunes allows you to purchase just the songs you want? How can schools deal with parents who can opt to home school their kids? We deal with this by allowed home schoolers to partake in the arts (many are in choir or band) and extra curriculars. How do schools deal with students taking the PSEO route? We offer College in the High School classes in conjunction with the college. How do schools deal with on-line classes that students could take to supplement (or some might like the verb supplant) their traditional high school classes. To be honest, I don't think we've dealt with this head on yet. I do remember getting an email from someone about possible signing up to help teach an on-line class, though.

I think we do a good job being proactive and preparing ourselves to deal with the changes in secondary education, and that includes changing parents. Are the days of 'in loco parentis' gone? I'm not sure. And I'm also not sure that it wouldn't be a great thing if they were gone. I'm just hoping whether the parents are baby boomers, Gen X'ers or Millennials, that they sit down their kids (or email or text them) and still ask them "What did you learn in school today." With the emphasis on learn rather than "What did you do in school today." And if the student says nothing, then push them to explain that or contact the teacher.