Many of them do this in spite of the inherent difficulties and in
spite of difficulties which the school itself puts in their way. An
Italian father in a little Illinois mining town brought out with pride
the last report of his little girl and showed the visitor that she
had an average of 90 per cent. In the families studied in Chicago a
few were evidently trying to keep in touch with their children's
schooling. Thus of one family it is said:
"Mother not only goes to school entertainments, but follows up the
children's work with the teachers, consults them, and accepts their
advice." This family is Bohemian, and both mother and father are
well-educated leaders in progressive Bohemian circles in Chicago.
In another Bohemian family the parents were also making an effort in
this direction, but, being less well equipped, their difficulties were
greater. The schedule says:
Mother never visits school as she cannot understand English.
Parents are very much concerned about their boy who brought a
poor mark from school. After family consultation, daughter
visited teacher, who advised them to take the boy out of
Bohemian school (a nationalistic school to which he went
after school hours), because he might be overworked.
These are, however, exceptional cases in the families studied. Among
the Bohemians and Slovaks, to be sure, a considerable proportion of
the mothers visited the school occasionally or knew some of the
children's teachers. Among the families of the more recent immigrants
it was almost unheard of for the parents to visit the school. Of the
eleven Russian families studied not one reported any visits to the
school or contact with the teachers, and only two of the Ukrainian
families. One of these visited only when the children did not behave.
This mother said that she thought she should know more about her
children's school work, but that she had felt so much in the way when
she visited the school that she finally stopped going.
An almost inevitable consequence of this failure to make contacts with
the school is that the parents remain quite unaware of what their
children are learning there. An attempt was made in our study of
selected families to get the parents' opinion of the work the children
were given at school, but very few parents felt they knew enough about
the work to express an opinion. A few to whom reference has already
been made thought the children gave too much time to study and not
enough to helping their parents, one or two spoke of the lack of
discipline, a few others thought the schooling must be all right as
the children learned to speak English. A Ukrainian mother of two
children, the oldest eight, "believes that it must be good, for the
children speak English and the oldest girl can read and write."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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