I can truly say that I can relate with this picture. It has been 15 years since I've started teaching at UST High School and there are parents who would staunchly defend their child. Not all parents are of course like the ones on the right. My worry is that there might be an increase of those kind of parents who will do it out of "love" for their child.
Poor teachers then.
I have witnessed parents not coming to Parent-Teacher Conferences because they simply don't have the time and they are busy with their work. Period. I have seen worse cases scenarios where students have been failing most of their subjects and the parents find out too late that their child will not be readmitted because of multiple subject failures.
In my own humble opinion, I think some parents have a twisted, if not wrong, connotation of teachers acting like "second parents". Yes the family code has explicitly stated that teachers have special parental authority (I'm not sure if in loco parentis is the same here.) over their charges since they are minors. But no where in the family code does it state that teachers become the substitute parents. And by substitute parent, that would mean giving all parental obligations to the teacher in which they should be doing in the first place.
Yes teachers love their students but this same love cannot be provided by the teachers in the context of parent-child relationship. We are constantly reminded to be fair to our students and no special treatment must be exercised inside and outside the classroom.
We are also taught in education classes that genuine concern for the well being of our students is one of the greatest attributes of any teacher. And I agree with that. But this concern is limited to the confines of the walls of the school. What happens when the student steps out of the school? Shouldn't this concern be a partnership between parents and teachers? Sadly there are families where the house becomes a boarding house for their children where they eat, sleep, study and play.
If this sad plight of teachers would continue, then it would mean the slow but painful demise of education. How I wish it was 1969 again.
