by Rebecca Segal

Many students go to their parents for help on school essays. But for others, this is all they hear at home:

“Je ne parle pas anglais.”

“No hablo inglés.”

“乖꼇삔綱亶刀.”

English Curriculum Coordinator Mary Burchenal said that students often get help from parents (and some teachers encourage it). According to Burchenal, it can cause problems, however. Students who get too much help from parents turn in work that is not theirs, while students who cannot are at a disadvatage to their peers.

Burchenal said that one of the groups of students who cannot get help on papers at home is students whose parents do not speak English.

Junior Danna Manor-Peleg, a student whose parents are from Israel and whose first language is Hebrew, said she often asks friends or teachers for help instead of her parents.

“I definitely think that kids who have parents who speak perfect English have better essays and better grammar,” Manor-Peleg said. “I don’t ask my parents for help because my English is better than their English.”

There are many in-school resources for students, English teacher John Andrews said. He said that students can talk to teachers, go to Writing Center or ask for help from many of the other programs in school.

“I think that’s a challenge if students don’t have people at home who can help them with work. That may put them at a disadvantage. That’s why we try to have other resources available to them,” Andrews said.

Andrews said that on the other end of the spectrum, the line between the student’s own work and too much parental involvement is often not clear. Andrews said that to avoid cheating, students should always be the ones writing on the paper.

“Maybe have conversations with the parent, but keep the pen in the hands of the student so the student is making corrections,” Andrews said. “I think it gets a little fuzzy when kids send off drafts to the parents, and they fix them, and they send them back to the kids and the student isn’t even involved in the process.”

Not only would parents rewriting essays be cheating, but it also makes it harder for a teacher to see where the student needs help, he said.

“If parents get involved in the work, sometimes the teachers can’t see what the students actually need help with because the parents are correcting too much or fixing mistakes, and then the kid isn’t learning how to fix it himself or herself,” Andrews said.  “They are just submitting something that has already been cleaned up and buffed.”

When Burchenal talks to parents on Back-to-School-Night, she reminds them that high school is about becoming more independent. She encourages students to get help from parents and for parents to help students. She also encourages students to seek some independence in writing.

“Demanding that you read over every draft and correct it before they hand it in is taking away some of that independence and causes friction if it’s not voluntary,” Burchenal said.

“On the other hand, if it is voluntary, if your kid is inviting you in and saying please help me, I would still encourage parents to think about that progression of independence,” she said. “Teach them to fish instead of giving them the fish so that they can, eventually, when they are off away from you, do these sorts of things without you.”

Rebecca Segal can be contacted at [email protected].