Who's To Blame?

USA Today offers an article that asks the question why students’ grades are not where they should be. Patrick Welsh proposes that it is students’ poor work ethic coupled with the school. -------- Excerpt: "Kids have convinced parents that it is the teacher or the system that is the problem, not their own lack of effort," says Dave Roscher, a chemistry teacher at T.C. Williams in this Washington suburb. "In my day, parents didn't listen when kids complained about teachers. We are supposed to miraculously make kids learn even though they are not working"... "Schools play into it," says psychiatrist Lawrence Brain, who counsels affluent teenagers throughout the Washington metropolitan area. "I've been amazed to see how easy it is for kids in public schools to manipulate guidance counselors to get them out of classes they don't like. They have been sent a message that they don't have to struggle to achieve if things are not perfect.“ --------- I would like to suggest that it is a combination of both with the parents added into the mix. Parents are abdicating the responsibility of parenting to the school system. Notice the sentence, ‘In my day, parents didn’t listen when kids complained about teachers.’ In a culture where we are asking 7-year-olds to be self-empowered, we have forgotten that they don’t even know what the ”self“ is. It has become a license to do whatever a child sees fit to do. I understand that parents are intimidated to discipline their children. But he who withholds correction from his son truly hates him. Whether it is talking back or taking drugs, parents must be willing to be hated by the ones they love most.