November 18, 2010

EDUCATION AND EMMA

Blunt honesty is how I roll. Very little that crosses my mind goes unsaid. I am not a college educated person. I am however, learned. The 30 years I have been around haven’t been wasted time. So many things have happened in my life and for me to walk away from any one of them without learning something either about myself or about life, then I would consider my time wasted.

That being said, I have some strong opinions regarding the education system. School is the time in our lives where we are truly molded into the people we are going to be. It is the responsibility of three people to make sure the time is used wisely and with intent. The student, the teacher, and the parents. When a child lacks academically one of those three participants is to blame. Period.

I’ll explain:

The student has the responsibility of doing their homework, studying for tests, actively participating in class activity, etc. When the child begins to shirk their role in the process, corrective action has to be made. I think it’s great when teachers meet with parents and discuss the child with the intent to improve their situation. If teachers and parents don’t pay attention that’s when kids fall between the cracks.

Parents have a responsibility to be 100% involved in what their child is doing in school. It’s more than just saying, “Do your homework.” Check your kid’s homework. Find out what they’re doing in class. Help them do their homework. So often kids will just blow through their homework and get a passing grade and not learn a thing. When kids aren’t excelling at school, parents should reflect.

Teachers have a hard row to hoe. They have this immense responsibility to lay the groundwork for the kids and the parents. It’s their job to set kids up for success. They are responsible for providing the tools a kid needs to achieve in life. The big line of responsibility is questionable as to their responsibility when a child fails.

My daughter came home last week with a four page packet for her language arts class. She is a nearly straight A student. She has two B’s and one of them is in Language Arts. Knowing that about her grade, I took interest in her homework assignments. I looked over this packet to see what the instructions were. She did the work and then I reviewed her answers.

The subject was Topic Sentences. She had a few pages of paragraphs with differing identification tasks of both topic sentences and supporting sentences. When I looked at her answers I was concerned at the amount of wrong answers. As I looked closer at the paragraphs, instructions, and her answers I got confused.

The paragraphs were poorly written. The instructions weren’t specific in telling her what she needed to do. I talked to her about her comprehension of the assignment. We did the homework together and I was confident she’d get a good grade on the work.

When she came home the next day, I was shocked to find out what happened in the class in review of the homework. I found one of the paragraphs in the homework confusing and I told my daughter to ask the teacher to help her with it. When she asked the teacher to explain why she got it wrong, the teacher told her to stop asking questions. She went on to tell my daughter the answer she gave was wrong and that was that. The fury I had was insane at that point. It’s one thing to get an incorrect answer. It’s another when the teacher ignores and shuts down a student when they don’t understand why they got it wrong.

We chose to put our daughter in a charter school because of the population of the student body. The entire 7th grade is only about 30 kids. Those 30 kids are split between two different teachers. In subject based classes the classroom size is usually around 15-18 students. That encouraged us as parents. So often class size contributes to poor achievement. The standard in a classroom is frequently based on the lowest performing student. Kids that understand the curriculum are forced to wait until those that don’t get it, catch up. Therefore the standard gets lowered.

I don’t know where the chain of responsibility got so broken. I am more inclined to blame the parents and teachers long before I blame a child. Kids are products of their environments. Parents and teachers are not teaming up enough to make sure the environments are the most conducive for kids to reach their potential. There is a huge debate as to the ability of those two parties to achieve that goal.

If parents stayed parents we could turn the standard around quickly. Jobs are important, but your kids are more important than the “stuff” we work to have. Most cases, education is free. Capitalize on such a priceless gift. We as parents can make the education worth while for everyone. When our kids don’t succeed, it’s our fault. Not just the teachers. As parents, we are responsible for the successes and failures of our children. Work with your teachers and find out how you can help them do their job. So easy.