Being a partner with your child’s school means working together with teachers, assistants, the nurse, counselors, and the principal to do what’s best for your child. Here is how to do that:
• Volunteer to help. If you can, spend some time at your child’s school. You will develop a good relationship with your child’s teachers. Helping at your child’s school can give you a better idea of the people and programs that are available to your child. Offer to help out in the school library or classroom. Volunteer to chaperone a field trip, be a “class parent,” or share something special about your job with your child’s class. Volunteer to work at the refreshment stand at a football game, or offer to drive students to volunteer in a community program. If you can’t be in school during the day, you can offer to type up field-trip forms or class lists, make class phone calls for the teacher, donate supplies, or make nutritious snacks for the class. You might organize a study group for the students before a big test or final exams. Serve “brain food.” Teachers will appreciate the fact that you care and that you are helping, even when you’re helping out from home.
• Participate in school events throughout the year. It can be difficult to find the time to attend games, concerts, plays, or other activities at school, but it’s important to do it when you can. Invite other family members and good friends—people who know your child well—to join you for these events. Try to attend school events designed for parents, such as back-to-school nights, an open house, or the college or university fair. Join the parent-teacher organization at your school.
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
School Series : Help your child get organized
We all do better work when we manage our time well and organize the tasks in front of us. Here are some ways to help your child get organized for school:
• Put a family calendar in the kitchen and write down important school dates. Write down when parents’ night at school will be, when report cards are coming out, when conferences take place, and when the holiday show will be. As soon as you receive an announcement of a coming event, write it down on the calendar. Talk with your spouse or partner about events on the calendar so that you both know what’s coming up. If your child’s other parent doesn’t live with you, give him or her a call so everyone can plan in advance for an important event. If you know you will not be able to attend a program at school, ask another family member or friend if she can be there in your place.
• Make sure there is a quiet space at home where your child can study without distractions. Make sure it has good lighting. Turn off the TV. Let younger children know that they have to let their sister work on her assignments because it is important to do them carefully.
• Help your child make lists and charts that will help him remember what he has to do. Make a check or star when each job is finished.
• Put a family calendar in the kitchen and write down important school dates. Write down when parents’ night at school will be, when report cards are coming out, when conferences take place, and when the holiday show will be. As soon as you receive an announcement of a coming event, write it down on the calendar. Talk with your spouse or partner about events on the calendar so that you both know what’s coming up. If your child’s other parent doesn’t live with you, give him or her a call so everyone can plan in advance for an important event. If you know you will not be able to attend a program at school, ask another family member or friend if she can be there in your place.
• Make sure there is a quiet space at home where your child can study without distractions. Make sure it has good lighting. Turn off the TV. Let younger children know that they have to let their sister work on her assignments because it is important to do them carefully.
• Help your child make lists and charts that will help him remember what he has to do. Make a check or star when each job is finished.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Toddlerhood Series : Support your child’s curiosity, intelligence, and hard work
Here are some ways you can encourage your child to work hard and be a curious and active learner:
• Praise and celebrate your child’s efforts and accomplishments. Focus on how much she wanted to do a good job and how hard she worked. Praise your child for trying hard and sticking with it. The effort is even more important than the final grade. Praise and celebrate every child in your family all year long—not just when report cards come out. Display your child’s papers and artwork on the refrigerator. Tell your child how wonderful her work is.
• Read often to your child and encourage your child to read. Your child is never too young for you to read aloud to him. Your child is never too old to listen to you read aloud. The more your child reads, the better prepared he will be to handle harder and harder schoolwork as he moves up the grades.
• Be interested in all the questions that your child asks. Try to answer or talk about those questions, even if you feel busy or tired. Whenever you can, take the time to help your child find the answers to questions—by looking in books, by asking an “expert,” by figuring it out.
• Praise and celebrate your child’s efforts and accomplishments. Focus on how much she wanted to do a good job and how hard she worked. Praise your child for trying hard and sticking with it. The effort is even more important than the final grade. Praise and celebrate every child in your family all year long—not just when report cards come out. Display your child’s papers and artwork on the refrigerator. Tell your child how wonderful her work is.
• Read often to your child and encourage your child to read. Your child is never too young for you to read aloud to him. Your child is never too old to listen to you read aloud. The more your child reads, the better prepared he will be to handle harder and harder schoolwork as he moves up the grades.
• Be interested in all the questions that your child asks. Try to answer or talk about those questions, even if you feel busy or tired. Whenever you can, take the time to help your child find the answers to questions—by looking in books, by asking an “expert,” by figuring it out.
School Series: Be actively involved in your child’s education.
Get to know your child’s teachers. Go to school meetings and special events like plays and holiday shows. Know when a test is coming up or a report is due. Here are some other ways you can be actively involved:
• Walk or drive your child to school when you can. If you drive your child, every now and then park the car and take a minute to go in if you can. Getting to know teachers and staff will help you and your child connect with school, especially in the elementary years.
• Find out about school and become familiar with your child’s schedule. It’s easier to have conversations about school if you know the names of all your child’s teachers and what’s going on in the classroom and at school. That way you can ask specific questions. “I heard you’re taking a trip to the town library next week. What are you studying?” “Are you going to enter a project in the upcoming science fair?” “Is your music class working on anything to perform for the holiday concert?”
• Walk or drive your child to school when you can. If you drive your child, every now and then park the car and take a minute to go in if you can. Getting to know teachers and staff will help you and your child connect with school, especially in the elementary years.
• Find out about school and become familiar with your child’s schedule. It’s easier to have conversations about school if you know the names of all your child’s teachers and what’s going on in the classroom and at school. That way you can ask specific questions. “I heard you’re taking a trip to the town library next week. What are you studying?” “Are you going to enter a project in the upcoming science fair?” “Is your music class working on anything to perform for the holiday concert?”
Saturday, May 3, 2008
A Brief History of Homeschooling
Is homeschooling a new fad? Are parents doing it just because it is the stylish thing to do? Well, if
that were the case, we would have a hard time explaining how people such as Wilbur and Orville
Wright came to be homeschooled.
Indeed, homeschooling, in some form or another, has been around for many centuries. While some children were given the opportunity to study with great philosophers, most learned life skills from their parents. Just as a parent teaches a child to walk and talk, the parent from centuries ago also taught the child to cipher, build, and create the tools necessary for day-to-day living. Children learned history from listening to stories being repeated by their older relatives. Today, we call that practice “oral history.” Extended-family members may have taught the children specialized tasks,such as sewing or hunting, if that knowledge was not within the realm of one of the child’s parents.
It is only in recent history that nuclear families have been isolated from their extended-family members, and this dynamic, in part, has changed the face of American education. While public schooling existed for many years, Massachusetts became the first state to enact a compulsory attendance law in 1852. Other states followed, and it wasn’t long until most children were educated in public schools. During the Industrial Age of the United States, public schooling became the norm as more parents began to work in factories and service industries. By 1918, all of the states had laws similar to the compulsory attendance law in Massachusetts as mothers went to work outside of the home when fathers were sent to fight in the wars involving our country during the first half of the twentieth century. Children attended public schools during the day hours while their parents worked.
This arrangement seemingly worked for everyone. Adults could work knowing that their young children were supervised and cared for by trained individuals while learning. The modern homeschool movement, which began in the 1960s, is widely attributed to John Holt. A veteran of World War II who went on to become an educator, John Holt envisioned ways to reform what he saw as a crumbling educational system within the United States. Disillusioned with the conditions within public schools, Mr. Holt recommended that parents once again take control of their children’s education. Initially, John Holt suggested a new concept—unschooling. To further his claims that children’s minds are eager, unspoiled, and fertile grounds of learning, he suggested schools where children were not taught, but facilitated. Within these institutions, children would find all the tools they needed to learn without tests, quizzes, or report cards. There would be no rules, no mandatory attendance, and no structure—just uninhibited learning. While some followers of Holt’s philosophy did set up these types of unschools, they were not widely successful—running out of resources and subsequently closing their doors.
Realizing that the community unschool was not an easily accepted or viable solution to the worsening conditions within public schools, Mr. Holt encouraged his followers to unschool at home.
Parents could serve as facilitators within their home unschools. This idea intrigued his followers, and a growing number of parents began to embark on educating their children at home. Eventually the words “homeschool” and “unschool” became used within newsletters and publications interchangeably, although it is important to note that within this book they mean two different things.
Homeschooling means to educate your child at home, whereas unschooling refers to a specific, child-led methodology of learning. In a 1980 interview with The Mother Earth News, John Holt estimated that there were already 10,000 families within the United States who were homeschooling their children using a variety of methodologies. Mr. Holt died in 1985. During the same time period, Dr. Raymond Moore and Dorothy Moore, sometimes dubbed the “grandparents of the homeschooling movement,” began to collect, analyze, and distribute information about the effects of conventional schooling methods. According to the Moore Method, a child’s education should be customized or tailored to his or her particular needs and interests. Many homeschooling parents adhere to this principle, as parents are uniquely able to incorporate their child’s interest and learning style into his education where the traditional school system, for practical reasons, is not.
While John Holt’s opinions about how a child should learn are directly opposite of the conventional schooling that most government-sponsored public schools promote, many other leaders, such as the Moores, have emerged in the homeschooling society who have far less radical ideas about how to educate a child. Today, children are educated at home using a variety of approaches; some resemble miniature schools, with small in-home classrooms and schedules, while others follow the Holt unschooling approach, allowing a child to become excited about his surroundings and to learn through exploration and discovery. Most seem to fall somewhere in between, allowing children the flexibility to follow their interests while providing structure where necessary to ensure that the child is learning the basics.
Throughout the four-decade span of the modern homeschooling movement, attitudes and opinions about homeschooling have changed drastically. Once considered an option for hippies, radicals, and those who were on various political, religious, and social “fringes,” homeschooling has consistently gained respect, popularity, and momentum as a viable and desirable family education choice.
Source : Lee Wherry Brainerd, Jessika Sobanski, and Ricki Winegardner. Basic Skills for Homeschooling. 2002
that were the case, we would have a hard time explaining how people such as Wilbur and Orville
Wright came to be homeschooled.
Indeed, homeschooling, in some form or another, has been around for many centuries. While some children were given the opportunity to study with great philosophers, most learned life skills from their parents. Just as a parent teaches a child to walk and talk, the parent from centuries ago also taught the child to cipher, build, and create the tools necessary for day-to-day living. Children learned history from listening to stories being repeated by their older relatives. Today, we call that practice “oral history.” Extended-family members may have taught the children specialized tasks,such as sewing or hunting, if that knowledge was not within the realm of one of the child’s parents.
It is only in recent history that nuclear families have been isolated from their extended-family members, and this dynamic, in part, has changed the face of American education. While public schooling existed for many years, Massachusetts became the first state to enact a compulsory attendance law in 1852. Other states followed, and it wasn’t long until most children were educated in public schools. During the Industrial Age of the United States, public schooling became the norm as more parents began to work in factories and service industries. By 1918, all of the states had laws similar to the compulsory attendance law in Massachusetts as mothers went to work outside of the home when fathers were sent to fight in the wars involving our country during the first half of the twentieth century. Children attended public schools during the day hours while their parents worked.
This arrangement seemingly worked for everyone. Adults could work knowing that their young children were supervised and cared for by trained individuals while learning. The modern homeschool movement, which began in the 1960s, is widely attributed to John Holt. A veteran of World War II who went on to become an educator, John Holt envisioned ways to reform what he saw as a crumbling educational system within the United States. Disillusioned with the conditions within public schools, Mr. Holt recommended that parents once again take control of their children’s education. Initially, John Holt suggested a new concept—unschooling. To further his claims that children’s minds are eager, unspoiled, and fertile grounds of learning, he suggested schools where children were not taught, but facilitated. Within these institutions, children would find all the tools they needed to learn without tests, quizzes, or report cards. There would be no rules, no mandatory attendance, and no structure—just uninhibited learning. While some followers of Holt’s philosophy did set up these types of unschools, they were not widely successful—running out of resources and subsequently closing their doors.
Realizing that the community unschool was not an easily accepted or viable solution to the worsening conditions within public schools, Mr. Holt encouraged his followers to unschool at home.
Parents could serve as facilitators within their home unschools. This idea intrigued his followers, and a growing number of parents began to embark on educating their children at home. Eventually the words “homeschool” and “unschool” became used within newsletters and publications interchangeably, although it is important to note that within this book they mean two different things.
Homeschooling means to educate your child at home, whereas unschooling refers to a specific, child-led methodology of learning. In a 1980 interview with The Mother Earth News, John Holt estimated that there were already 10,000 families within the United States who were homeschooling their children using a variety of methodologies. Mr. Holt died in 1985. During the same time period, Dr. Raymond Moore and Dorothy Moore, sometimes dubbed the “grandparents of the homeschooling movement,” began to collect, analyze, and distribute information about the effects of conventional schooling methods. According to the Moore Method, a child’s education should be customized or tailored to his or her particular needs and interests. Many homeschooling parents adhere to this principle, as parents are uniquely able to incorporate their child’s interest and learning style into his education where the traditional school system, for practical reasons, is not.
While John Holt’s opinions about how a child should learn are directly opposite of the conventional schooling that most government-sponsored public schools promote, many other leaders, such as the Moores, have emerged in the homeschooling society who have far less radical ideas about how to educate a child. Today, children are educated at home using a variety of approaches; some resemble miniature schools, with small in-home classrooms and schedules, while others follow the Holt unschooling approach, allowing a child to become excited about his surroundings and to learn through exploration and discovery. Most seem to fall somewhere in between, allowing children the flexibility to follow their interests while providing structure where necessary to ensure that the child is learning the basics.
Throughout the four-decade span of the modern homeschooling movement, attitudes and opinions about homeschooling have changed drastically. Once considered an option for hippies, radicals, and those who were on various political, religious, and social “fringes,” homeschooling has consistently gained respect, popularity, and momentum as a viable and desirable family education choice.
Source : Lee Wherry Brainerd, Jessika Sobanski, and Ricki Winegardner. Basic Skills for Homeschooling. 2002
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