Some teachers have worked in schools in disadvantaged areas for years without ever having visited a pupil's home, a conference was told yesterday by Dr Sandra Ryan, of NUI Cork.
In conducting research with teachers in disadvantaged schools she had been shocked to discover they did not understand the extent of the problems their pupils were trying to cope with, she said.
Dr Ryan was addressing an international conference on supporting families in disadvantaged communities organised by the Western Health Board and NUI, Galway.
By and large our schools reflected the values of middle-class society and placed demands on children which did not take account of their home circumstances, she said.
In the course of her research on education and disadvantage, she had tested an eight-year-old boy suspended from school for smoking. The test showed him to be among the top 3 per cent in the country in ability. He was killed three years later as a passenger in a stolen car.
"He was a boy the education system failed to reach," she said.
By not encouraging disadvantaged children in their education, society was doing both them and itself a disservice, Dr Ryan continued. Parents in disadvantaged communities tended not to value education as a means of bettering their children.
"There are three generations of unemployed in some of these communities," she said. "How can you realistically walk into a school and say, this is your way to success?" It was vital that schools harness the support of families, she said.
"The family is the most important and powerful influence on the child's life." It was not true that the parents did not care. "Most I have come across really value their children and try to do their best." The Home School Community Liaison Scheme had done much to bring parents into the school, she said.
Parents had done self-development and other courses which they chose themselves. Parents had come into the classroom to lead groups of children in activities. At first, she said, some schools found this difficult to accept but gradually relationships got better.
One parent said that nobody in her life had ever asked her opinion before she got involved in the scheme.
Parents grew in confidence and self-esteem, improved their skills of managing in the home, built up support networks with other parents and improved their attendance at parent-teacher meetings, she said.
Generally speaking it was mothers rather than fathers who were involved. When a school on Dublin's north side sent a note home with the children inviting the fathers to a special meeting, many of the mothers did not pass on the notes. This was because they considered matters concerning their children to be in their area of responsibility as mothers.
Small children could spend so much time in supervised, regulated activities that they had difficulties in dealing with relationships later on, the conference was told.
Mr Peter Steen Jensen, a city planner in Odense, Denmark, said children who went to kindergarten there never had the experience of looking after a sister or brother "because the institution does it". Later on, when they became parents, they did not know how to take care of their own children.
"Now we are training parents to be parents," he said.
He believed kindergarten education should be changed so as to "give children back their relationships with other children". The conference ends today.