For the past few years, I have been hearing anecdotes from my peers about, “Oh my parents work in the field all day long,” “They don’t know how to read or write,” “There is little economic opportunity for them and they can’t get better jobs.” A fact I can’t seem to understand is how, despite many students performing decently in terms of writing and reading, they’re parents still don’t know how to read at least.
Don’t get me wrong, I do understand that some parents work long days, especially in a mostly farmer community. Parents may not have “enough time” to learn something or care to do so. Students may also be “heavily busy” concerned with school-related work (at least those who don’t have a job after school).
However, it is known for a fact that neither parents nor students spend the ENTIRE day doing their own duties. At least a minimum of 3 hours of a day is left for students and their parents to have interactions. Why not make use of that interaction time and dedicate it to the education of low-educated parents?
I know it would be hard at the beginning to understand for them but practice leads to advancement. I know elders who dedicate at least an hour trying to read and write with no prior experience that has gotten way better in a few months.
Dear Tadeo, I fully agree with what you said in your post. My dad has lived in the united states for most of his life and still doesn’t know how to read, write, or speak English. It infuriates him whenever someone speaks to him in English and he has to ask us to translate for him. Recently he has asked me to teach him how to speak English and I have been doing so. He now understands some words and phrases which is a huge improvement in my eyes.
Dear Tadeo, I agree with your statement about students and parents taking time to learn some English. my father at first didn’t care enough to learn English but he realized how important it was for him to know how to read, write, and speak English to get by. He started with books that I used to read as a little kid so from there he started learning and also from my family as we all speak English so he had us only speak and respond back in English it took time but he improved.
Dear Tadeo, I agree with your text. I have also thought of this because I have tried to get my mom to learn how to speak english for a while now, but she just won’t do it. She uses those same excuses, that she’s too tired or that she needs to cook. But I think that you can’t force someone to learn something they don’t want too. If my mom doesn’t want to take this opportunity to learn, then I can’t make her. It all falls down to whether they really wanted too or not. Because if you really wanted something that badly, you wouldn’t make up any excuses for it.
Dear Tadeo I agree with your statement of how parents and students should make the best of their time when they do interact. It is important for parents to also succeed in education and the more they are able to understand and get educated it can lead them to more opportunities in the workforce. It would be helpful for students to have empathy for their parent as they did not have the same chance to get educated as they did and should take that to their advantage and include any type of education topics into the time they have together. Education does not have a limit it is just important for people to learn and evolve for themselves.