These parents, those parents

As an educator and a parent, I often cringe when I hear the term ' these parents' and wait with bated breath for what comes after.

And the comments are mostly judgemental: These parents don't come to meetings. Those parents don't understand this math. These parents walk in when they feel like, these parents, these parents, these parents.

On Jan 29th, I was in the company of many parents. It was ( as per my previous post) the Information Night at our high school. Families milled around, hesitant at first and then taking the plunge, asking questions trying to re-caliberate ( Randy Paush used this word in 'The Last Lecture' and I love it).

As I wandered around, collecting fliers for my class display ( some of my students were at a tournament and they would need the information) I met this gentleman and after the exchange of pleasantries and the usual conversation of the snow and the cold weather, the talk moved to high school in general and changes in particular. He said: " I am quite impressed when I see the math my kids are doing these days: they work with concrete materials, are expected to demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving in groups, have conversations about their math reasoning, think about their thinking ... Wow!"

I had to ask: Were you born and raised in Canada? Did you go to school here?"

"Oh yeah," he assured me, " Yet I did not do math this way. This is just a sign of the change in times and expecations in education."

Phew, this was the time to exhale on behalf of all ' those parents' who 'did not get the math we do here'.. After all, not so long ago, I had been one of them. 7 years ago, entering Canada with a high level of fluency in 6 languages ( English being one of them) I was mildly disappointed that I did not know that the 3Rs" meant "Retell-Relate-Reflect" and not " Reading-'Riting-'Rithmetic" ( never mind the spelling, it is English after all, it cannot be wrong now can it?).

I narrated my story, we chuckled about this and the gentleman went on his way. BTW, did I mention that he heads the math department at a high school?

Will all ' those parents' please stand up!!!