ELI5: Are teachers nowadays generally forced to be more submissive to their student's parents than in the past, and, if so, why is that?

In order to be more specific, I will illuminate the other comments in this thread, which are all on the right track, but all going in the wrong direction.

"A strong focus of teacher training programs includes empathizing with your pupils and trying to do the best by them."

This tells us that teachers are being trained to make decisions about what is best for children rather than having decisions imposed on them by patents. Thus, teachers are increasingly independent.

"the expectations of modern school districts for teachers to do more and more as simply part of the job,"

That teachers are doing more and more says they are being given the ability to do more, and are thus more independent. Previously, schools couldn't serve as social workers, public health nurses, nutrition providers, community recreation faculties, vocational counselors, and so on, but the restrictions that prevented it have been lifted. Teachers are more independent.

"In the UK we use what are called "market principles", which requires schools to advertise."

This tells us that teachers have increasing independence which they use to differentiate themselves from other teachers.

"there are children who are constantly being bounced around the school's in the local area because their parents were so belligerent that they would take offense at every minor slight and think that their child (or worse, themselves) are being abused by the system."

Bouncing around from school to school says that when parents are dissatisfied, rather than bringing teachers into submission, like previous generations, they go to another school because teachers there are independent enough to do things differently.

"In England, the "everyone is a winner" attitude is thankfully dying out. the ban on sports day has been repealed, children can earn rewards again...that equality nonsense where everybody gets the same thing has been thrown out of the window, "

Obviously teachers have the freedom to cling to an old philosophy or adopt a new one, which is the opposite of the antecedent this redditor described.

"Teachers may be more inclined to "dumb down" the material in order to ensure everyone in the classroom feels successful"

Look! Teachers again given the independence to dumb down or not dumb down material rather than following board-approved lesson plans like previous generations.

This comment gets the wrong conclusion, but shows why its wrong:

"Even a few decades ago it was considered acceptable to beat children to the point of injury for misbehaving. If you go back a century, you can find mainstream literature that explicitly links raising children to raising work animals."

A century ago, teachers were empowered with two ways to discipline kids. Beat them, or beat them. Now teachers can beat them, expel them, ignore them, enter into hippie "behavior contracts," enlist a district psychologist to help, or any of a hundred other things. That's waaaaay more independence. And it's continually growing. It has been for many generations.

"Keep in mind, in the past, a child's teachers would have been private tutors or governesses hired by the parents. So the parents would have had a lot of control over them."

This is true, and parents had much more control over their own employees that lived in their homes. But a similar comparison can be made with the 1930s. We were more rural. Cities were groups of small ethnic enclaves. You probably knew your kids' teachers, the principal, the superintendent, and half of the board personally. You went to church together and were in the same Elks lodge. You had them over for dinner. You traded with them. You had A LOT of influence. Today your influence is mostly limited to voting. You aren't even allowed in the building without a pat down and criminal background check. At 4 pm, your teacher flees your city on a commuter train.

We encourage pedogological experimentation in ways we never have before. We protect teachers from being fired for political controversies like never before. We have more turnover than ever before. In these and many more ways, parents are more disconnected, even the ones that send angry e mails, and teachers are more free to decide how they do their jobs than Laura Ingalls or To Sir, with Love, or Mr. Kotter.

/r/explainlikeimfive Thread Parent