An example of America’s continuing Cultural Revolution was reported on ABC News: “The mother of an 8-year-old Arizona girl who was presented with a “Catastrophe Award” for apparently having the most excuses for not having homework believes her child was humiliated by her teacher.”

So what!

When you scan the comments for this ABC piece , many sound like these, which I copied and pasted from the ABC News piece:

1. “Where has this MOTHER been? why hasn’t she been      aware that her daughter hasn’t been doing her homework? Why is she going      on t.v. to complain about this issue?”
2. “The mother wasn’t aware that her daughter had a      problem with homework? Maybe she should have gone to a parent/teacher      conference or two. But no. She goes on TV to cry and complain. At least we      know where the daughter gets her talent for making excuses.”
3. ” It is not the teachers responsibility to have a      child do homework.. it is the parents! If a parent is having trouble      taking time in the evening to help her child than she needs to hire a      tutor.”
4. “The mother should be more aware of what her child      is doing at school……I’m sorry but kids have homework every night maybe the      mother should go through her back pack once in a while. I’m so sick of      parents no being responsible for their children’s ACTIONS!!!!!”

As you can see, it is obvious that this mother was not doing the best job she could but she is not alone. In fact, she represents the average American parent as you shall discover. If you are reading this, I hope you are not one of those average parents.

Liberty.edu says, “Overall, most findings have shown parental involvement, whether at home or at school, have a moderately significant relationship with higher academic achievement, and this relationship has been found consistently across demographics (e.g., ethnicity, sex, or socioeconomic status) and measures of achievement (e.g., achievement tests, grades, and grade point averages). Research points to the conclusion that “parental involvement is an important predictor of children’s achievement in school” (Englund et al, 2004, p. 723).”

In addition, “A 1999 survey of St. Louis kindergarten students revealed that while 95% of the parents rated reading as very highly important, only 16% of the parents were reading to their children each day… .

“Parental involvement tends to diminish as children move to higher grade levels. In 1996 and 1999 surveys, 86% of parents with children in grades K-5 reported attendance at a scheduled meeting with their child’s teacher. Contrastingly, among children in grades 6-8 and 9-12, only 70% and 50% respectively had parents who attended meetings involving their child’s teacher (U.S. Department of Education, 1994).” Source: Parent and Teacher Perceptions of Effective Parental Involvement – A dissertation presented to The Faculty and School of Education Liberty University

A few comments criticized the teacher for giving the child an embarrassing award but most were similar to the few examples posted here.

What will it take to educate the average American parent to understand a parent’s responsibilities to raise and educate children?

However, there is another aspect of this topic that is more important than an eight-year-old that earned a negative award for not doing her homework.

Continued on June 6, 2012 in The Good and Bad of America’s Continuing Cultural Revolution – Part 3 or return to Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

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