Teachers aren’t here to raise your kids. That’s your job

September 8, 2026 — 3:30pm

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The best thing I’ve heard in the whole catastrophe around boys at school is this: a headmaster at a Catholic boys school, Sydney’s St Joseph’s College, imploring his students to be better men.

Principal Michael Blake gave this all-school speech at the end of August. That was the week we’d heard about multiple alleged sexual assaults and endless reports of chaos in schools. And that was on top of all the stuff that never gets reported.

He said: “The way we educate young men is under scrutiny. So, it has been a tough week to be a man.”

And just when you thought he was going to tell us “not all men”, instead he talked about how much harder it is to be a woman. “As tough as this week might have been to hear the media stories, it has been infinitely harder to be a female.”

You said it, brother. Every day. Every week. And mostly when we hear from headmasters, principals, whatever they are called, we hear defensiveness. That the horrors were a weird blip, that the offending boy was a really good guy.

Then we hear, as a fix, a chorus on the importance of respectful relationship training in schools and suggestions of behaviour curriculums. I have no faith in the latter for reasons I’ll get to – and respectful relationship training in high schools comes about 10 years too late. Way, way too late. I think it is meant to be a top-up – but so many boys come to school with no basics in place. Speaking of Catholics (the principal of Joey’s), let me remind you what the Jesuits say: “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man”.

Now, guess who has kids until they are seven? Could it possibly be, ah, the parents? Instead of endless complaining about what goes on in the classroom, take a long hard look at your own parenting. And then, when you dislike what you see in your children, go stand in front of a mirror.

Your job is to bring up kids who don’t behave like dickheads, either at school or anywhere else. And that means not undermining what the school says, not undermining teachers at every turn, not blaming your child’s behaviour on someone else when, believe me, it’s your fault.

I know this as a parent myself. When one of my kid’s teachers described my kid as insouciant, I knew exactly what that teacher meant. As a person who has spent her entire life being way too souciant (not really a word but you know exactly what I mean), it was a source to me of pride that at least one of my kids could appear as if they couldn’t GAF. Whereas me? Worry every single day of my life, even about things I know I can’t change. Still, we took it on board and wrangled our kid to hand in all the homework, not just the bits of interest.

I wanted to tell this teacher that insouciance was a source of parental pride, but I pulled my head in. And I knew of other parents at the school who spent a lot of time, including engaging lawyers, to dispute assessments, to dispute punishments. Look, I love to argue the point myself (and did when I discovered that one teacher based her marks on feels rather than rubrics) but mostly, just back the hell off. Use your passion for social justice for kids who don’t have your clout. Or money.

Later, I heard about a huge uptick in parent complaints about teachers. Paul Kidson, associate professor in educational leadership at the Australian Catholic University, told the Herald’s education reporter Christopher Harris back in 2023 that parents and children were often given a free pass on behaviour, when really, parents need to step up and discipline their kids.

Kidson, ever the diplomat, tells me there are some great relationships in schools: teachers, kids, parents. But there is an increase in inappropriate behaviour from parents directed towards teachers. And how does that end? Principals and teachers leaving teaching.

Behaviour. Which brings me back to the newly published “research” by the Centre for Independent (of rigorous research methods) Studies. It’s trying to blame teachers. I would have thought parental responsibility should have been more the vibe. I won’t bore you with all the details of what was wrong with claims that a third of class time is spent dealing with disruption. Except that when you look at the detail, it is hard to be confident that it is a really representative group.

Now, let me introduce you to Sally Larsen, a researcher at the University of New England, who pointed me to one of the extreme flaws.

The timing. It’s a week before the end of term and kids are disruptive. John Buchanan, productivity expert and professor in the University of Sydney’s business school and actual researcher tells me that it’s well recognised when doing social research that you have to take account of the “distinctive seasonal effects”. Don’t do it at the extreme points.

Because let me tell you what happens in university classes in the days before the Easter long weekend! Or in a newsroom when holidays are approaching. I wish I could say the behaviour was as normal. Far from it.

One other thing about the survey, as it is described by the CIS. Larsen pointed out that over 80 per cent of teachers said they felt confident or fairly confident about managing misbehaviour. The report then claimed that maybe that was because low-level disruption had become normalised.

Um, I spent my entire high school years trying to make the class laugh, sometimes, I am ashamed to say, at the teacher’s expense. That was last century. And I wasn’t the only one.

As for a behaviour curriculum, this makes me laugh. Unless the CIS was thinking of implementing one in families. Now there’s a very good idea.

Jenna Price, a regular columnist, works with educational researchers all the time and has a PhD so has a reasonable grasp of methodology and methods.

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Jenna Price is a regular columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via Facebook or email.AdvertisementAdvertisement