[marki]

Litigation is of no real concern to most teachers where I work (private college) as the school will deal with that side of things unless the teacher has really done something very very stupid and several parents who have tried to threaten with legal action have soon backed down when they see we are willing to meet them in the courthouse and have recieved legal advice . Never a pleasant experience for anyone involved though. The problem is quite straight forward, everyone went to school thus they profess to be experts on how schools should be run usually with little or no knowledge what so ever about what is really needed (i.e. good parenting for starters). The answer is simple really. There needs to be a collective effort between the primary educators (parents), the students themselves and the teachers to maximize the potential of every kid. I have seen some very good experienced teachers and excellent graduates with great potential leave the profession simply because they were no longer prepared to deal with parental attitudes towards them (we are a sensitive lot but it is a caring profession after all). Many teachers after having a bad experience with a parent will switch off and deliberately stop trying to help the student succeed which is never a good outcome for anyone. So I guess I posted this for all you parents out there in IIS cyberland. Work with your children's teachers, 99.9% actually have your Childs best interests at heart and will work diligently to get the most out of each student to the best of their abilities. If they have to fight your kid in class and you out of class.....well the result is not going to please anyone.

Andrew I have only been teaching 15 years as I worked in industry most of my life like many of the people I work with. We come from all fields far and wide with much life experience. This is very much a trend in teaching in West Oz and the last 3 graduates we hired were all mature age and very well qualified and experienced in their specialist fields.

Mark