Are You a Teacher's Worst Nightmare?by Michele Cheplic | More from this Blogger 05 Feb 2009 09:28 AM In Japan, they're called "monster parents," and now teachers there have a new way of dealing with them. You might know a few monster parents yourself. They're hard not to notice. Typically, they are the moms and dads who are constantly complaining and making unreasonable demands on schools and teachers. Most of them are overbearing, pushy, and some of them go as far as threatening educators. But, instead of fighting back with their fists, teachers in Japan are taking a new training course to learn how to deal with these pushy parents without resorting to physical violence. Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology accredited a total of 1,693 training courses for the new teaching license renewal system, which began last month. By the end of 2009, roughly 400 universities and other private schools will open license renewal training courses. As a part of the 30-hour training course, teachers will learn how to handle monster parents via communication skills. The training involves mock situations where irrational "parents" take out their ire on teachers. One horror scenario involves a mother who shows up with five burly family members at her side for what she thinks might be a difficult parent-teacher conference. Japanese teachers will also be schooled in how to handle monster parents who are in the midst of bitter custody fights and bring their on-going squabbling to school. I applaud Japan for providing their educators with extra training. It's just too bad that they feel the need to establish a training course to deal with these types of out of control parents. I think most parents are rational and supportive of their child's educational process, but I suppose these days you never know when someone is going to lose it and endanger themselves and others. What do you make of Japan's new teacher training program? Do you think it would be met with success here in the United States? Related Articles: What if You Hate Your Child's Teacher? Learn more about Michele Cheplic  Michele Cheplic was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii, but now lives in Wisconsin. Michele graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Journalism. Relevanteducation tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Community Tags parent, school, teacher Discuss this article
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