Educator Turns The Table On Parents Blaming Teachers For The Fact Their Kids Can't Read
"It would behoove you, for your child's sake, to work with the teacher."
Prostock-studio / Shutterstock There's no two ways about it — America is in the midst of a burgeoning literacy crisis. Who exactly is to blame is a complicated question, but one teacher is fed up with the resistance he has gotten for trying to get parents more involved.
The teacher is imploring parents who blame educators for their kid's illiteracy to work with teachers.
It's not just a kid here and a kid there — all over the country, teachers are reporting staggering problems with Gen Alpha kids' literacy levels.
Twice-yearly studies by the National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed how deep the problem goes. They have consistently found a staggering two-thirds of American fourth graders are unable to read with proficiency. It's even worse for eighth graders, only 31% of whom are proficiently literate.
Florida seventh-grade teacher, author, and content creator L.S. Gabriel Hannans is among the educators who have been sounding alarms about this terrifying problem.
In a TikTok from December, he explained the discomfiting correlations between illiteracy and behavioral problems, as well as increased chances of ending up in prison.
But it wasn't that part of the video that got him blowback. It was his pleading with parents to get involved in their children's education and to partner with teachers, especially where literacy is concerned, that had parents infuriated.
Data consistently shows that parental involvement is intricately tied to academic achievement where literacy is concerned. There are even indications that parents reading to their children might be even more important for building their literacy skills than school instruction. A 2019 study found that parents not reading to children leaves them with a vocabulary gap of one million words.
But as Hannans revealed in a recent follow-up video, all too many parents see things differently.
Hannans was lambasted by furious parents blaming him and other teachers for their children's inability to read.
"I'm a 7th-grade teacher," Hannans said in his video. "A lot of my students read very well below grade level, and so I need help from other parents to help work with their kids outside of school to reinforce the things that I'm teaching in school."
To many of us, that seems like a pretty basic request, but the response Hannans got was truly shocking. "Y'all would have thought that I told somebody to climb Mount Everest in the middle of winter during an avalanche with an anvil strapped on their back," he said.
He described the backlash — scores of videos blaming him for the fact that their kids can't read, and far worse. "Somebody even threatened my life because I said that."
Hannas then took parents to task for blaming teachers for the fact their kids can't read and refusing to hold themselves accountable.
Hannans cast this problem as a matter of priority. "Something as small as reading to your child for 30 minutes a day is so insurmountable you can't do it, but you'll be on your TikTok for 30 minutes a day," he said.
He went on to admit that he understands things are harder than ever for parents given the economic hardships so many of us face, especially having been raised by a single mom himself. But that doesn't change the crux of the situation.
"You can point fingers and blame who you want, but the reality is these children cannot read on grade level," he said. "We are having to dumb down curriculum to get these kids to where they need to be, and they're not getting there."
"It would behoove you, for your child's sake, to work with the teacher to get your child to that level," he pleaded.
Hannans stressed, however, that children's illiteracy is a systemic problem that can only be solved by working together.
Hannans made clear that just as he is not to blame for kids' illiteracy, neither is he blaming parents alone. "This is not a me problem. This is not a you problem," he claimed. "This is a systemic issue, and we cannot fix it if we're blaming each other and not helping each other."
The only way they can beat that systemic problem, he said, is by committing to work together. He urged parents to collaborate with teachers if their child has difficulties in school. "We can figure something out to help your child," he exclaimed.
"But nothing is going to change... as long as we sit here pointing the finger and not actually dealing with the issue," he Hannan continued. "These kids can't read. Let's teach our children how to read. These kids can't do math. Let's teach these kids to do math."
Photo: fizkes / Shutterstock
Hannan's bottom line? "It takes a village to raise these babies. As long as you all keep being hyper-independent, nothing is going to change. I promise you. And I'm not the only one saying this."
Indeed he isn't — scores of academics, social scientists, and other experts have been sounding alarms about the ways America's individualistic streak is harming us, from our increasingly impossible economy to our deadly political divisions.
Now, we can count our children as those suffering from this uniquely American disease. And as Hannans pointed out, especially in states like Florida where he lives, relying on the system to fix things is a fool's errand.
Citing the state's increasingly draconian book bans, he mused, "What's the point of banning a book that the children aren't gonna read in the first place? You can ban the book. They can't read it!"
"There are thousands if not millions of teachers across this country who are saying the same thing," Hannans went on to say. "Help the teachers that are here. They're trying to help you."
For practically every issue facing our country right now, not just our crumbling education system that is faltering after decades of politicized neglect, collaboration is our only path forward. Taking both initiative and responsibility for not just our own, but each other's, survival is vital.
Nobody, from either political party, is coming to save us. That should be crystal clear by now. Our kids are depending on us to awaken to this fact and do something about it.
Start now. Read to your kids. Limit their screen time. Work with their teachers. To refuse to do so is to give up. We cannot leave them behind.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.