Your cyberinfo isn’t safe…from your parents!
May 04, 2008 in Education, Tech
As I ponder what steps I’m going to take into the wider world of using the internet as a part of my instruction, I’ve considered the concept of having student grades online for parents to access. In my experience, the more parents know about what’s going on in their kids’ lives, the better. With my learning support students, I send home a behavior sheet every day, and the parents generally like them a lot. It’s instant feedback on how their children performed in school that day, on a behavior and work scale. If they could get similar feedback on grades instantly, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Apparently not always (New York Times, free registration required), as it can encourage the worst tendencies of the dreaded Helicopter parent:
At an age when teenagers increasingly want to manage their own lives, many parents use these programs to tighten the grip. College admission is so devastatingly competitive, parents say, they feel compelled to check online grades frequently. Parents hope to transform even modest dips before a child’s record is irrevocably scarred.
“I tell my son, ‘What you do as a freshman will matter to you as a senior,’ ” Mrs. Dobbins said. “ ‘It will haunt you or applaud you.’ ”
There’s a part of me that applauds the attention to their children and another part of me sitting in horror thinking these kids will never be able to make a single decision on their own once they join society.