Author: Cori Anne Weber / Source: did you know?
After 15 years of teaching, Amie Diprima Brown of Georgia’s Cartersville Middle School had grown so disappointed with uninvolved parents that she made a public plea for the well-being of not only her own students, but kids everywhere.
She’d noticed a remarkable decline in participation for a homework assignment she gives to parents at the beginning of every school year.
The assignment asks parents to write her a description of their child, which, she feels, is paramount for her to truly understand her students.The increasing lack of involvement over the years became so overwhelming that she finally took to Facebook urging parents to be more involved in the lives of their children.
Naturally, her post blew up. Here’s what it said:
With all of the talk about guns in schools, why it’s happening, and how to solve the issue let me offer a little different perspective. I’ve been teaching since 2003. This marks my 15th year in the classroom. Everybody always talks about how schools have changed, and it’s true, they have. Yes, there’s the “crazy new math” and “bring your own device” changes. However, there are some other changes that I think the general population is not aware of.
Every year for 15 years I have sent home the same assignment on the first day of school. I send a letter home asking parents to tell me about their child in a million words or less. I go on to explain that I want to learn the child’s hopes, dreams, fears, challenges, etc and jokingly ask parents to limit it to less than a million words since we all know we could talk forever about our children.
I go on to say I’m not grading these, not looking at handwriting or grammar and don’t care if they send them back with their child, email them, drop them off at the office, etc. These letters have been so beneficial to me as a teacher and getting to know my students on a personal level. I have learned about eating disorders, seizures, jealousy issues between twins, depression, adoption, abuse…just to name a few things. These letters give me a huge head start on getting to truly know my students. I often pull them out when a child has a sudden change in behavior or issue that comes up. Just this week I had 2 students lose their mother unexpectedly. Brother and sister, I taught one last year and one this year. As I have done before, i immediately went to my folders to pull the letters that mom sent for her children. It’s a beautiful gift that I feel I can give students to get a glimpse into how much a parent loved and adored them. As I was putting the folders back in the file cabinet I noticed something. I know that the percentage of parents that complete this assignment each year…
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