School Problems: Questions Parents Ask About School

Christine Linge is a past director of the Toronto & District Parent
Co-operative Preschool Corporation and a freelance writer.

In School Problems, Joyce Nesker Simmons, who is a teacher and an
educational consultant, presents selected letters from her newspaper
column of the same name. The correspondence—from “educational
consumers” (parents and students) and teachers—is organized into
thematic chapters (“Starting School,” “Elementary School,”
“Discipline and Behaviour,” etc.). Each chapter begins with a brief
philosophical overview of the given subject.

We begin “Learning Our Lessons as Parents” with Simmons’s
“Seven Rules for Success in Parent–Teacher Relations.” Her intent
is to guide parents toward being “part of a team that strives together
to promote the child’s best interest—actively, not waiting for the
problem to dissolve.” To this end she also provides two “Thank
You” lists—one from parent to teacher (“Thank you for keeping my
child motivated”) and one from teacher to parent (“Thank you for
avoiding parking lot gossip”)—encouraging respect as the first step
toward a parent–teacher partnership.

Simmons’s approach is child-centred: “No adult, volunteer, or
professional should be allowed to come between a child and learning, and
to make a child miserable, whether in the classroom or out.” Such
directness and brevity, appropriate to the journalistic origins of the
material, carries an emotional boost that may inspire readers to paste
the author’s thank-you lists to the fridge. Though the letter format
has limitations (specific case studies never wholly suit anyone else,
and gossip such as “I got our babysitter, 19, pregnant” is
sensationalist fodder), Simmons’s infectious commitment to better
education sparkles in this setting.