All parents know that moment when
they realize just how fragile and vulnerable their little new baby
is. At that moment they want to do everything to protect the child.
We spend an enormous amount of time and energy keeping our babies and
children safe. But it is more than this. We also want them to be
happy and to avoid the growing pains that we went through ourselves.
But we also have to acknowledge the
reality - that, if we want them to thrive in this less than perfect
world, we cannot completely shelter them. No matter how much we wish
to. Our job as parents, and as teachers, and as role models, is to
teach them how to deal with the real world. It is no good to prepare
them for an utopia that not only doesn't, but also in all likelihood
can't, exist.
No matter when a child is first
introduced to the larger society - daycare, playgroup, kindergarten,
camp - the parent brings one critically important factor to the
experience: the knowledge of the child. No one knows a child better
than his parent. To anyone working with that child, that knowledge
is priceless. The first insight into the makeup of the child comes
from the parent. I have always felt that the first parent-teacher
interview of the year should involve the teacher asking questions and
the parents revealing their intimate knowledge of the students. Any
teacher would benefit from this viewpoint.
Parents are always partners with the
other people who help their children learn and grow. Parents should
be respected for this and their role acknowledged. Just like we no
longer just take the pill that the doctor gives us and stay ignorant
about our own health, neither should we completely turn control of
our child's education over to teachers and administrators. Yes, they
know what is best for the average child, but your child is never
average. In fact, the average child does not exist. It is a
manifestation created from large amounts of data to provide a program
that will suit most children most of the time. I would argue that
that is not good enough, nor is it the way to run an education
system.
Given the training and experience that
good teachers have, they should be able to individually work with the
parents for each child. Whenever I carefully express this opinion in
the presence of teachers they always reply that there are too many
children to do this. And yet, each teacher at the elementary level
is only responsible for 30 children. This does not mean that the
teacher needs to teach each child individually but that they first
learn each child from the parent and from their own testing methods.
Then they group the children for each skill at the appropriate level.
They supply the tasks and the tools and let the children work it out
in their own best way at their own time. With properly expressed
expectations and responsibilities, this is not chaos but engaged
learning - the only kind of learning that is meaningful.
Ask yourself this question: what
lessons do you remember from high school? Why do you remember them?
How much do you now consider useless? The curriculum has been put
together by professionals who realize all the skills and knowledge
that children should have to succeed in the real world. The fact
that some of that you found useless is not the fault of the
curriculum itself but the manner of the delivery. An unengaged
student may learn enough to pass the test but will not learn what
they will need to go forward in life. Many of us had to relearn what
we were taught because we did not learn it the first time.
I can hear some of you now saying, "But
I never needed to know the date of Confederation! I never used
trigonometry!" But that is not what you were supposed to learn.
Canadian history is not about the date of Confederation but an
appreciation of where our country came from and how that affects
decisions that are made today. Without this awareness we have no
hope of understanding the factors behind the issues of today's
politics - Aboriginal claims, French rights, social services, health
care. And trigonometry is not about triangles and angles but about
precision and multi-step procedures that require intense focus and
accuracy. These are valuable skills and are the underlying reason
for the curriculum.
So I repeat in conclusion that students
must be engaged to learn. Teachers must know their students in order
to engage them. And parents are the best source for this
information. If teachers wonder why so many parents are not involved
in their children's education, the system does not respect the
knowledge and value of the parents. Embrace any teacher who does.
They are the ones who will best teach your precious child the skills
needed to thrive in this world of opportunity.
