Teacher to Parent

Teacher to Parent is a weekly newspaper column with a simple formula: parents write in with questions, and Jody Stallings answers them from the perspective of an experienced, award-winning teacher. The result is a fresh, often humorous, and always candid approach to education that emphasizes common sense, tough love, and parental responsibility.

Here's a sample of what you'll find in this collection of Teacher to Parent's best columns:

On parents being more important than teachers:
"If a student's first 18 years of life were condensed into a 24-hour day, his entire school experience would last fewer than 4 hours."

On giving into a child's demand:
"Rewarding a tantrum is never a good strategy for raising children to be adults who don't throw tantrums."

On giving young children a cellphone:
"The day you hand over that phone, your children will lay down their innocence."

On positive reinforcement:
"Kids should learn to do what's right because it's right, not because it will personally enrich them."

On Common Core Math:
"It's like teaching a child how to make a sandwich by saying, 'First plant a field of wheat.'"

To a parent seeking to change her child's teacher because of a "personality conflict":
"Instead of preparing the world for your child, try preparing your child for the world."

"There is nothing phony or artificial about Teacher to Parent. Stallings displays a capacity for applying simple good sense to conflicts between parents and their children's schools. I am confident that all parents who take the time to read and consider the wisdom in Teacher to Parent will come away better prepared to deal with their own classroom conflicts."
Dr. David O. Whitten, professor emeritus, Auburn University