Parents increasingly don’t teach kids values says SA principal of 50 years Robert Hoff

It’s very clear parents don’t get what it is to be a teacher in the 21st century, says this seasoned Aussie teacher and principal. And he says it’s having a profoundly negative impact on our kids.

An award-winning principal says there has been a growing lack of respect for teachers and today’s parents expect educators to teach values that should be taught at home.

When Robert Hoff – who was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in this year’s Australia Day awards for services to education and professional associations – started his career, corporal punishment and blackboards were the norm.

But in Mr Hoff’s 50 years in education, most of them as a principal, it was not just the classroom he has seen change.

The now retiree, 75, said lack of understanding and respect from parents and students was among the biggest differences.

Mr Hoff was just 24 when he became a principal at St Paul Lutheran Primary School in 1973 but since then has seen an increase in parents with “little understanding about the challenges that teachers have these days”.

“When you come in for teacher parent evening … it’s very clear they don’t get what it is to be a teacher in the 21st century dealing with children with behavioural issues, learning issues,” Mr Hoff, from Myrtle Bank, said.

And parents are increasingly expecting teachers to instil in students “what’s right and wrong”.

“Parents who do not set the guidelines at home, expect the schools to do it all for them and that’s not the way things work,” Mr Hoff said.

“A growing number of parents expect their children to learn values from the school.”

Students will often say “I’m always right, no, I didn’t do that” when expected to take responsibility for their actions, he said.

Robert Hoff saw a lot of changes in his 50 years as a principal. He was first a principal at the age of 24 and spent 1997-2018 at Immanuel Primary School. Picture: Keryn Stevens

“Some kids find it very hard to self-assess what they did and when you point it out there are lots of kids who don’t want it to be pointed out.”

However, he said student behavioural issues have remained the same throughout his career.

“There were kids who tested the boundaries then, just the same as there are kids that test the boundaries today,” Mr Hoff said.

But there have been some positive changes in the classroom across his time in schools.

“There’s been more research about how the brain works and how children learn best,” Mr Hoff said.

“The good schools and good educators have taken that research on and changed the learning environment.”

The curriculum has changed to allow for more flexible learning, Mr Hoff said, which makes children more engaged in class.

“There’s less emphasis on testing the kids all the time and more emphasis on seeing them genuinely involved in their learning,” he said.

“They want to come to school because they love the learning that’s going on.”

And the layout of the classroom has changed for the better too.

“When I started, we were all in classrooms in little boxes and you had your 35 or 40 kids all sitting in rows because that was the easiest way to do it,” Mr Hoff said.

Classrooms today allow students “greater freedom and flexibility and allows them to work together in groups”.

Mr Hoff’s last position in a school was at Immanuel Primary School in Novar Gardens, which he held for two decades.

Originally published as Parents increasingly don’t teach kids values says SA principal of 50 years Robert Hoff