Parent Teacher Conflicts
...Conflicts between teachers and parents are often more difficult to handle than conflicts between students. Parents may have one ideal of how their child should be educated and the child’s teacher may have another. For example, one teacher’s policy is to accept no late homework. Many parents protested this policy for the reason that they believe that teachers should accept late homework. The teacher defended her policy by saying, “We feel that…our students need to be organized, do their work, and hand it in on time. But the most important value we want them to learn this year is responsibility (Wieland, 1999).” Another conflict that is always in the news is the censorship of books. Teachers and parents are in constant conflict over what material should be presented to children. For example, in New York a teacher was removed after complaints about a book called, “Nappy Hair”. The term “nappy” is usually associated as derogatory term, however, the author of the book who happens to be black, created the book to teach racial diversity. The author states, “the book was meant to encourage the appreciation of our cultural diversity and ethnic uniqueness, (Glave, 1999)”. The author of the book and the teacher were both of the belief that the parents had not read the book in its entirety but only the first few pages thus they did not believe they were being given a fair chance especially since the students felt the book was a true lesson in cultural diversity. This is an excellent example of a common conflict that occurs between teachers and parents. Now that you have some ideas on why conflicts occur between parents and teachers and a few examples of conflicts that have occurred, the following are some things that both parents and teachers can do to prevent or resolve a conflict. One is to establish a relationship as soon as possible thus the teacher should let the parents know how he or she can be reached and the parents should stop by before or after school starts and introduce themselves. Both should work as a team, parents should be involved in classroom and school activities at whatever amount work and family responsibilities will allow, teacher...