In an average household, how involved are parents in their children’s education? I’ve always wondered. I know every household is different. Some parents might put too much pressure on their children to get good grades; others might actively sabotage their child’s education. But what’s considered normal?
I’d place myself somewhere in the middle, leaning towards neglect, though not maliciously. My schoolwork had always been my own business to take care of, even in elementary school. Nobody was trying to prevent me from succeeding. But nobody was particularly making sure I succeeded either.
I wasn’t helped to learn to read past spelling my name. I wasn’t ever read to by my parents…really, anything I ever learnt was learnt at school. Nobody asked for my report card or whether I had an upcoming quiz. I was never asked, “Shouldn’t you be studying?” when I came home and simply watched TV. Or even shown how to study in the first place.
Once or twice, suspiciously after a PTA meeting, my mother would get angry and try to teach me multiplication, though it only led to yelling and crying when I didn’t understand, so she gave up quickly, washed her hands of the problem, and by the next day it was forgotten.
There were no consequences for me not participating in school. Nobody cared, so why should I?
I was not a poorly behaved child by any stretch of the imagination. Even if I was not academically successful, I had the natural disposition of a child who was, and I frequently gravitated towards being friends with children who were. I was shy, never interrupted in class, minded my own business socially, was on time, and went on my way once the bell rang.
For the most part, my teachers didn’t have much of a perception of me at all. I never spoke to them, and they rarely spoke to me. I didn’t cause trouble, but I didn’t participate either. I was easy to overlook in a crowded room of 30.
For reference, by Grade 9, my average test scores would have been 40s and 50s in English and Social Studies, and 20s and 30s in Math and Science.
My gateway drug into cheating was not for myself, but for a friend. She had gotten a 60 or something in a class, and her mother wanted her to get a higher score, or else there would be consequences that I forget the specifics of. I offered to help her, not academically. I scanned her report card on the printer and very skilfully converted the ‘6’ into an ‘8’, copying the font quality from another ‘8’ on the page, then printed it out for her.
I never heard what came of that, so I assume it all worked out.
When I got to high school, the system separated students into different levels of the same subjects based on academic ability. I was, of course, streamlined into the lowest ones. Same basic subjects, lower difficulty.
This also meant I was separated from my friends, who were usually in the higher-level classes, and instead placed with students who struggled in school for reasons very different from mine. Some were just academically behind, but many were extremely…disruptive. Teachers spent a good portion of class trying to keep people sitting down, quiet, and doing anything at all.
So while I was now doing school alongside some of the worst-behaved students, I was the least pressing problem in the room. Basically invisible. Perfect.
I started blatantly using my phone during math tests, searching for online formula calculators. I’d politely ask if I could be seated in a separate room because the other students were so loud. “I’d be able to focus better alone.” “Oh, of course, you sweet little angel. Go right ahead.”
Thanks, idiot.
My grades were now reasonably secure in the low-level courses. However, I gradually became less and less thrilled to show up to the building in the first place. What motivation did I have?
By late Grade 10, I had no friends. Zero. My old friends had gradually become more interested in the peers they shared higher-level courses with, or people from clubs they attended. It was reasonable, only natural. That’s all to say I had no social obligation to be there, and certainly no academic one.
Some weeks, I was at school only two or three days out of five. My mother didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care when she did.
However, the school system itself cared. My many unexcused absences were flagged by the computers, which, by design, could not overlook me. This resulted in many lunch detentions. A lunch detention consisted of sitting quietly in a room and working on homework instead of socializing for the hour. Ugggh how awful!
Not really. I had no friends.
For roughly two or three years of high school, I spent every lunch hour in a bathroom stall. No food, gross. Sometimes I was on my phone, sometimes sleeping, most times just staring at the door counting the minutes until the period ended. At the time I thought it would be better if schools didn't have lunch, we could just work through the whole day, and go home at 2:30 instead of 3:30.
So the lunch detentions were never a big whoop. But I don’t know, I got sick of them, especially having to talk to the detention lady and explain why I’m there again. I actually preferred being in stall-itary confinement.
But I still wanted to be able to skip school when I wished with no consequences.
My mother left for work before I had to leave for school. Once she left, I’d go upstairs and send an email to the school from her computer excusing my absence for the day, then delete the evidence that it was ever sent.
Problem solved.
Now, cheating on tests and quizzes doesn’t give you a foolproof 100 for every assignment. The opportunity for cheating rarely arises, so most of the time I was taking the L’s because…I didn't care.
But I did suddenly care a lot in the last few months of Grade 12 when the difference between me graduating and spending another year in high school was the number 37 sitting next to my final math grade.
I had no plan for that.
But, by some luck, an opportunity arose, and I took it. As a personal aside, eight years later I still become giddy with evil whenever I tell this story. I am not remotely ashamed of it.
My math teacher at the time was also the girls’ volleyball coach. We were on mildly friendly terms, nothing more.
On a day that nothing new needed to be done or handed out, he proposed that during the class, we all go to the gym to watch the girls volleyball practice.
I have no interest in sports whatsoever, but he made a point that everyone needed to come.
However, as everyone was almost out of the room, I asked him privately if I could stay behind and work on my missing assignments.
Two things I assumed happened in his mind. MacLean is trustworthy to leave alone. MacLean is also failing miserably. So he let me stay behind in the class.
I had no intention of doing anything malicious at that point, I just didn't want to go and would rather sit on my phone. Until I saw that he had left his computer open, unlocked, at the front of the classroom with the school's grading website open.
I don’t know what struck me, I don’t remember what gave me the idea. Anything I was thinking, I don’t remember.
But I decided to get up and change my grades myself. I had many missing assignments that were marked as flat zeros. It would improve my grade tremendously to alter those zeros, rather than up the grades that did have marks. However changing the zeros would be the MOST obvious.
I changed them anyway.
If I was being sneaky, I could have made them match up with my other averages, 30? 40? 50?
No, I changed them all to 100.
It was so blatant, so obvious, so in the face of anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention. I was at the front of the classroom, on the teacher's computer typing 100…100…100.
And then I sat back down and enjoyed the rest of my alone time on my phone looking at memes on Instagram.
Something that makes the situation even more absurd, that sometimes I leave out when relaying this story to friends, is that there was actually another kid in the room who also stayed behind. He saw me.
Well, I don’t know if he saw me, I don’t think he bothered to look up.
Looking backwards, I asked what a normal amount of parental involvement in a child’s education looks like. I still don’t know.
The most involved my mother became in my education was when I pretended to be her.
And no, nothing ever came of me changing my grades. No one ever confronted me, so I assumed it all worked out.