Your child comes home from school and tells you that school is “soo hard.” How does a parent adequately respond after gritting of teeth and reluctantly passing up the golden opportunity to share that is he or she would just pay attention a little better or put in more effort it might change? Below is a detailed review of reasons why you need to understand why your child hates school:
The first thing is to obtain some clarity. You need to figure out exactly what the complaint means. Does it mean that math is difficult? Reading? Writing? Paying attention? If so, what specifically is giving the child difficulty? Once you are able to determine exactly which subject or area is troubling,you may want to speak to your child’s teacher to determine if he/she notices any “red flags.”
Evaluate child happiness
How happy are this school’s kids with their education? It can take some time for students to understand how their schooling prepared them for life. One key question is: How many of your graduates would send their own child to the same type of school?
School discipline methods
What is this school’s approach to discipline? Does the institution have a student conduct policy? You may want to know what kind of behavior and attitudes the school encourages, and what is off-limits. Also, it can be substantial whether behavioral traits are dealt with in personal ways or ways that can be said to be more supportive. Every regular child misbehaves at some time, so the school’s disciplinary mechanism is likely to be quite relevant for both you and your child.
Ways of assessment
How do teachers assess their students’ learning? Conventional schools focus on testing, which has both advantages and disadvantages, especially for young children. It does give an objective measurement. However, for many young students, a fear of testing detracts from their enjoyment of learning. Kids who hate school may not learn as much. Poor test scores, for some kids, creates a belief that they are incapable of learning. Also, objective tests are limited in scope and are often poor at evaluating creative ability and social skills. Whether you want a focus on testing or not, it is probably a worthwhile area to enquire about. And for those schools that de-emphasize testing, how do they communicate students’ progress with parents?
Another reason why you need to understand why your child hates school is the development stages applied by the teachers. Also, How does this school’s mechanism fit with the curriculum developmental stages of a child? Developmental experts have learned a great deal about ways on how children’s learning capacities develop in stages. We also read about educators who really push early reading and math skills at younger and younger ages, on the assumption that “earlier is always better.” But does this assumption fit with optimal child development? Or are students better served with their early childhood filled with imaginative play, making friends, and physical activity?
Children who learn to read at a slightly later age are also more likely to have greater motivation for reading years down the road, in high school. This is too complex a subject to cover fully in this brief article, but I highly recommend exploring it further.
Sourced from: sheknows
Photo: Thinkstock/Dangubic
