The parents in my classroom

Some parents of kids in my class watch the screens of their kids’ school-issued Chromebooks remotely when they’re in class. “My mom wants to know I’m not playing video games,” a student said. Many parents are so tightly tethered to their kids it’s as though they’re sitting in our classrooms with us. And it’s not only through screens. Some of them contact us about schoolwork so their kid doesn’t have to. A student told me he saw no reason to talk to me about an assignment he was struggling with “because I know my mom is going to email you about it for me.”

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A few months ago, one of my students sneakily took a picture of a spelling quiz and sent it to his mother. Ten minutes later—students were still taking the quiz—I received an email from her asking why I had given it and if he could, instead, take it the next day “so he can review more.”

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One day, during that time, a mother of one of my students sent me an email. The subject line, in all caps, read, “I CAN HEAR EVERYTHING AND I DON’T LIKE IT.”

We were discussing Romeo and Juliet. Her email quoted things students had shared about whether they believe in love at first sight and if they think that love lasts forever. It was the liveliest discussion they’d had all year. With everyone stuck at home—and given the increased mental health concerns during the pandemic—I was glad my students were eager to talk about relationships and human connections in the cyber world we’d created together. I never fully understood why the parent didn’t “like” what she heard. It didn’t matter. Our classroom wasn’t for her.

Her son barely spoke in class after that.

A few excerpts from one very interesting article. The concluding thoughts, which I did not add here, are especially poignant and thought-provoking.

However, on a personal note, all I could think while reading this was of how awful the situation must be for kids with abusive parents/guardians. Having grown up in an environment of being surveilled and recorded in the home, and remembering the absolute full-body shock of terror and mind-racing panic felt in my youth when my guardians would pop up at my school unexpectedly, I can all too clearly imagine what life would look like with today’s acceptance of extreme 24/7 observance of children by their parents.

So, apart from the issues discussed within the article, this constant lack of privacy is such a horrible thing. My heart bleeds for those young people trapped in such inescapable conditions. There are better ways to ensure children’s safety and to be involved; and we need to quickly find and implement them.