Parent does not equal Good Teacher

A couple of days ago I was watching a TV show in which a man was demanding from his wife for her to take charge of their 12 year old daughter's education. The father wanted to remove the girl from the public school system and force his wife to home school the girl because he felt it was safer and it was the wife's duty to educate the girl at home. These statements done by the father other than being exaggeratedly chauvinistic and unreal left me thinking about home schooling and the level of involvement parents should have in their kids education. How far should a parent go, how much should a teacher tolerate? Where are lines crossed? Today while I was roaming the children books section at Borders I involuntarily witnessed a situation that chilled my bones but provided me with some answers to my own questions. I saw a mother trying to teach her daughter how to recognize verb tenses in Spanish. What's wrong with that? Is what you might be thinking, well, the part that chilled my bones and made me want to bitch slap the woman was that the girl was probably around eight years of age and the mother was talking to her as a drill sergeant would talk to a private during the first week of basic training. As could be expected the child was scared, about to cry and could not concentrate so every time mom would ask a question the little one would get it wrong and the whole children section plus the corridors of the store would know she got it wrong for to add insult to injury, she wasn't using her indoor voice when she corrected the child. The point this example proved to me is that being a parent does mean you are a good teacher. Not all parents have the disposition, patience and training that being a good teacher requires. There is no hormone released during pregnancy that readies you to be the appropriate teacher for your child, or somebody else's child for that matter. Being a good teacher just like every other good professional is a matter of loving what you do and those that you do it for. So if you can't take the heat, get out of the classroom before you damage your child's education in ways you would never wish to. Because as I have witnessed a vast amount of times during my years teaching, good parents are not always good teachers. Something that the aspiring teacher should always have in mind is that teaching is a calling, not just another 9 to 5 with a set of paid vacations twice a year.