Written by Gabbie Stroud, author of the national bestseller Teacher, Dear Parents is a passionate call to arms for all parents to understand their role as their children's lifelong teachers, showing how they can help their kids' educators and schools achieve the best outcomes for the next generation.
So many Australian parents are buying the government line about standardised testing of students through programs like NAPLAN and My School, which make them think they are getting results because of rankings and comparisons. But they don't seem to realise that these new forms of assessment are actually negatively affecting our kids' ability to gain the crucial life skills and appreciation for learning that have been, and should be, the main aim of teaching.
In Dear Parents, a funny, heartfelt and impassioned series of letters to the mothers, fathers and caregivers of Australia, Gabbie Stroud makes a plea to all parents to understand the fundamental changes to the way their children are being taught, and the results of this process on the development of future generations. She wants parents to recognise their responsibility as their children's primary educators and to appreciate the lifelong benefits that committed
and dedicated school teachers can bring to their kids.
"Caused tears of nostalgia and rage to soak my pillow." HELEN GARNER on Teacher
Watching children learn is a beautiful and extraordinary experience.... It is a kind of magic, a kind of loving, a kind of art. It is teaching. Just teaching. Just what I do. What I did. Past tense.In 2014, Gabrielle Stroud was a very dedicated teacher with over a decade of experience. Months later, she resigned in frustration and despair when she realised that the Naplan-test education model was stopping her from doing the very thing she was best at: teaching individual children according to their needs and talents. Her ground-breaking essay 'Teaching Australia' in the Feb 2016 Griffith Review outlined her experiences and provoked a huge response from former and current teachers around the world. That essay lifted the lid on a scandal that is yet to properly break - that our education system is unfair to our children and destroying their teachers. In a powerful memoir inspired by her original ground-breaking essay, Gabrielle tells the full story: how she came to teaching, what makes a great teacher, what our kids need from their teachers, and what it was that finally broke her. A brilliant and heart-breaking memoir that cuts to the heart of a vital matter of national importance.
