Parents threatening teachers with lawyers to blackmail them to get better grades for their children – what is wrong with our education system?
It would be wrong to reflexively glorify the ‘good old days’: that would mean condoning beatings with a cane, tolerating ‘standing on the sidelines’ or ignoring the wayward behavior of teachers. No, everything at school was certainly not better then. And yet too many developments in our school system deserve the grade ‘not sufficient’.
On the one hand, this is the often denied but still common political participation in the appointment of positions, the enormous backlog in terms of reforms or the increasingly brazen attempt by parents to influence the assessment.
There are WhatsApp groups where people are shamelessly encouraged to ‘speak out’ with teachers about unwanted grades. Moms and dads lie in wait in front of the school building for the teachers to forcibly give them a ‘very good’ for their son. Otherwise, the gates of the high school would remain closed to the boy. And if ‘persuasion’ does not help, the lawyer threatens with a lawsuit.
When insolence wins
Do we really want that? That it is not the teacher who takes over the assessment of the children, but the judge? Does this blackmail find its way into everyday school life? That achievement no longer counts, but brutality wins? The real victims are the students, on whose backs an unpleasant power struggle between adults is being waged. Most people probably only want one thing: to learn.
Source: Krone
I am George Kunkel, an author working for Today Times Live. I specialize in opinion pieces and cover stories that are both informative and thought-provoking – helping to shape public discourse on key issues. My work is regularly featured across the network’s many platforms, including print media and social media.
