As the BA Coordinator, one of my duties is to welcome our new ‘English Studies’ students in a joint session before registration. Apart from helping them regarding choices they need to make on their registration form, I give them a few pointers about how to become successful university students. I have gone as far as drawing a quite formal document, which I distribute and read with them, giving common-sense information about what we expect from them: be autonomous, check the syllabus, keep an up-to-date diary for the assessment activities, use the Library, participate in class, read the books in advance…
This is the second time I offer this welcome session and in both cases, I’m sorry to say, I have started by sending a few mums and dads out of the classroom.
I’m really appalled by the presence of so many mothers and fathers in our Facultat on registration days. I do not mean parents lending a hand to children who cant’ be at UAB because they work, or are elsewhere (well, if they’re on holiday, that’s another matter…). I mean parents that stick to their children throughout the whole process and who wrongly believe that their presence is indispensable. As I told the very surprised new students, their registration with us is a rite of passage into adult life they should undergo alone, and never under the wing of parents who, though caring, are often simply distrustful of their own children’s capacities. I’m told that actually some kids welcome parental help as they are happy enough not to bother about the often unnerving registration process. Yet, I hope this is a tiny minority. For their own sake.
Whatever the case, at the end of the session a girl approached me to clarify the matter that worried her: her English is B1 and not B2 as we require – so, what should she do? Suddenly, her mum appeared and when I told the girl it was her responsibility to make sure her English was good enough, the mother started a fantastically anxious tirade about how her daughter was too relaxed about the whole affair, didn’t do enough, etc, etc. I told this mother that she should let the girl make her own mistakes and trust her. When I asked her why she had accompanied her daughter at all, she told me the girl needed a ride, which the girl herself denied, as she had already been to UAB on her own. It was not easy to tell this mum, who was more or less my own age, that she should have total confidence in her daughter’s ability to do well on her own and that, anyway, she wouldn’t be able to come to class and check on her daily… It was very complicated not to be offensive, and I don’t know what the consequences of this conversation can have been for the girl.
In a way, I sympathise with the mother. Also with the other mother who called me last Friday at 9:00 asking for information about our degree, sounding very concerned because her absent daughter hadn’t chosen a BA yet. I have no children myself and I don’t know how I would react if a kid of my own behaved in this non-chalant way. Yet, the parents of my own generation, those between 40 and 50, seem to me too overprotective, which is not doing their kids, my students, any favour. This, of course, also makes me sympathise with the daughter(s).
Believe me, it was not easy to start the session by telling those mums and dads they were not welcome. I believe, though, it was necessary and that’s what I’ll do as long as I coordinate the BA. By the way, all my colleagues, mums and dads included, supported my decision –for them the ultimately sinners are the university teachers that, as I was told, also accompany their children on registration day. Wrong, wrong…
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