Following the child's progress at school is a difficult matter for
parents who themselves have not had the benefit of education, or even
for those who have been educated under a different system. It is,
however, not impossible for them to do so; by means of reports in the
language they can understand, by talking to the teachers or some one
of the school authorities who knows about the child's work, they can
keep closely enough in touch with his school record to enable them to
give help at the point where it is most needed.
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."
Sometimes the failure to understand what the children are doing brings
unnecessary worry. A Hungarian mother, speaking of the education of
her children, expressed regret that they were not taught carpentry.
The visitor turned to the eleven-year-old boy and asked him if he
didn't have manual training. He replied that he did, but "she doesn't
understand."
A careful study of the answers to the questions in our attempt to get
parents' attitude toward the children's schooling shows, then, that
while a few exceptional parents have been able to follow their
children's schooling, the great majority of them have not. It suggests
that some of them are willing and ready to do it if only some of the
obstacles were removed, and that there are also a large number who do
not realize the necessity of it, and for whom something more must be
done. The opportunity of the school, and various devices for rendering
aid at this point, that have been tried, will be discussed in a later
chapter.
The failure of the parents to understand not only means confusion and
worry for them, but for the child lack of the help and sympathy at
home that they might have. It becomes more serious as the child
reaches the age when he is no longer compelled by law to attend
school, and the decision as to whether or not he shall go on rests
with his parents. When the parents have not known about the work he
has been doing, and have no means of judging how much or how little he
has learned, they are obviously in no position to make a decision
about his further education.
There are many forces at work to influence the immigrant parent to
put the child to work at once. There is, first of all, in many cases,
economic pressure. Sometimes the child's earnings are actually needed
to make up the family budget for current expenditures. In some
families, however, his earnings are not so much needed as desired, to
help in buying property more often than for any other reason. In these
cases it seems clear that the attitude toward the child as a means of
contributing to the welfare or prestige of the family is a very
important factor. One Polish doctor with whom we conferred emphasized
this point. He said that the Polish parent expected to stop work at an
early age and live on the earnings of his children. Hence he took his
children out of school as soon as the law allowed, and had them start
work.
Another factor that undoubtedly plays an important part is the
parent's own lack of education. Never having had any opportunity for
more than the most elementary education, it is only natural that it
should seem that a child who had spent seven years in school should be
fairly well educated. This attitude is strengthened if he has
succeeded without education or if the people whom he looks upon as
successful have had little education. He is further confirmed in this
attitude very often by his failure to realize the extent of the change
in conditions and the ever-increasing complexity of the situation
with which his child will have to deal. Thus he often fails to
understand that an education that was quite adequate for the simple
life in the old country is far from sufficient for life in this
country to-day.
Some of the people with whom we conferred were of the opinion that
many of the parents from groups oppressed in Europe failed to realize
the full significance of the freedom here. There the higher positions
and the professions had been closed to them on account of race or
class, and many of them were not aware that here they would be open to
their children if they could give them the necessary education and
training.
There are, fortunately, forces at work to counteract this tendency to
take the children out of school at the earliest possible moment. There
is, too, among the foreign born, a very general desire to have their
children do office work rather than manual labor, and an understanding
that this means more than a grammar-school education. There is a
certain naïve faith in the benefits of education even though they are
not understood. This is particularly strong in people to whom the
schools have been closed by a dominant race in Europe--the Jews from
Russia, for example. And in proportion as the parents become educated
so that they feel their own limitations, they appreciate education for
their children and strive to give it to them. There is no doubt that
all these influences are felt in the foreign-born groups, but they win
out gradually against the force of the traditions by which the parent
is guided in his decision to take the child out of school.
The American community could hasten their action by helping the
foreign-born parents to understand. There have been some attempts to
enlighten the parents. The work of the Vocational Guidance Bureau in
Chicago should be mentioned in this connection. When a child wants to
leave school to go to work they explain to the parents the importance
of keeping the child in school, and suggest means by which this can be
done. This happens, however, only after the decision and plans have
been made to put the child to work. The bureau has been handicapped in
dealing with foreign-born parents by its lack of foreign-speaking
visitors.
An attempt of a different order has been made to reach the Bohemian
farmers in Nebraska. A professor in the state university has for a
number of years gone out to these farming communities, urging in
public speeches given in Bohemian the necessity of higher education
for the children, and especially for the girls.