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1. Make sure that your child gets enough sleep at night.
2. Make sure that your child is eating healthy. If the school food is not healthy, you may want to talk to the principal and teachers to see what can be done to make it better.
3. Make sure your child understands that s/he must respect the teacher and staff. Cultivate a good relationship with your child's teacher and let him or her know that you are willing to go the extra mile when it comes to helping your child. Ask the teacher what kinds of help to give.
4. Help your child learn to self-advocate. If s/he is having trouble, go over ways to let the teacher know in a polite way.
5. Support your child's learning at home by having a quiet place for him to study. Set up a study table and let your child know that you value his study time. Even if he doesn't have homework, a regular study time can be established that gets the habit of studying *something* ingrained. If he has no homework, then it should be something he is really interested in.
6. Look at the school structure to see if you can join any groups working for school improvement. This may be the PTA, but it may also be school improvement committees that involve parents and teachers working together. If you cannot spend time at the school, see if there are ways to support teachers by taking home activities you can do and return to the teacher the following day.
7. Get to know the principal. Get to know the school secretary. Get to know the lunchroom staff, the aides, etc. You will find that the staff can often help you through difficult issues that your child may have.
8. Remember that teachers and school staff are people too. Pat them on the back when they do a good job. Be polite and respectful when bringing issues to their attention. A little honey goes a long way in smoothing over difficulties.
1. Make sure that your child gets enough sleep at night.
2. Make sure that your child is eating healthy. If the school food is not healthy, you may want to talk to the principal and teachers to see what can be done to make it better.
3. Make sure your child understands that s/he must respect the teacher and staff. Cultivate a good relationship with your child's teacher and let him or her know that you are willing to go the extra mile when it comes to helping your child. Ask the teacher what kinds of help to give.
4. Help your child learn to self-advocate. If s/he is having trouble, go over ways to let the teacher know in a polite way.
5. Support your child's learning at home by having a quiet place for him to study. Set up a study table and let your child know that you value his study time. Even if he doesn't have homework, a regular study time can be established that gets the habit of studying *something* ingrained. If he has no homework, then it should be something he is really interested in.
6. Look at the school structure to see if you can join any groups working for school improvement. This may be the PTA, but it may also be school improvement committees that involve parents and teachers working together. If you cannot spend time at the school, see if there are ways to support teachers by taking home activities you can do and return to the teacher the following day.
7. Get to know the principal. Get to know the school secretary. Get to know the lunchroom staff, the aides, etc. You will find that the staff can often help you through difficult issues that your child may have.
8. Remember that teachers and school staff are people too. Pat them on the back when they do a good job. Be polite and respectful when bringing issues to their attention. A little honey goes a long way in smoothing over difficulties.
While I can appreciate, and even agree with the things that you have listed, this may only work on an average to slightly below average school. The bad ones, I mean, the really bad ones in the lowest socioeconomic areas, well, that a whole different can of worms.
I was going to break down each one of these suggestions to explain why they won't work in everyone's case, but I didn't want to be entirely negative. Suffice it to say, your list requires that the student wants to learn and the teachers want to teach. If either of these is missing, its an uphill battle. If they're both missing, the war is already lost.
The whole idea that you need to go to school to get an education is a 1950's obsolete idea. We have the internet these days and getting an education is next to free if you spend the time and effort to learn.
I attended a mediocre (at best) rural public consolidated school in a part of the country that couldnt really afford to attract the cream of the crop, teaching-wise. I learned the bulk of what learned by reading on my own, not via school.
I tell my students that if they depend on school to educate them, they will end up badly educated at best.
The best taught people have always been self-taught people.
One of my favorite books is The Day I Became an Autodidact by Kendall Hailey, whose parents let her drop out of school after tenth grade to educate herself. She kept a journal and published it. I was one of her customers!
1. Constantly reinforce, at home, the idea that it is cool to be smart and well-read and logical.
2. Speak ONLY correct English at home, without lapsing into street slang yourself or tolerating it among your children.
3. Help them understand that School is a place where they HAVE to go, and respect its authority and tolerate all its defects, but is not the only fount of education and wisdom.
Great post. Funny how many poor, recent immigrants to the US go to the worst schools, graduate at the top of the class and go to college. It's possible. They value education and take advantage of the fact that while their US school may be at the bottom of the heap, it's still hundreds of times better than the public schools- if there are any- of the countries they are emigrating from.
I think the value of a good school is not just that the teachers are motivated/high qualified, it's SAFETY. Seriously, no matter how motivated the kid is to learn, he will have a hard time concentrating if he has to watch his back all the time or witness his best friend getting stabbed.
1. Constantly reinforce, at home, the idea that it is cool to be smart and well-read and logical.
2. Speak ONLY correct English at home, without lapsing into street slang yourself or tolerating it among your children.
3. Help them understand that School is a place where they HAVE to go, and respect its authority and tolerate all its defects, but is not the only fount of education and wisdom.
I cannot completely agree with #2, in certain instances/environments. It is entirely possible to "code switch" on demand. The trick is to make sure that both forms of speech are learned properly. However, I do realize that a significant percentage of parents who don't speak correctly don't know any better.
I don't see anything wrong with street slang, as long as it remains on the street.
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