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What Makes a Good Teacher

July 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment
A special education teacher assists one of her...

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Every parent with a school-age child understands how much a good teacher can influence a child. For most kids, their motivation comes from wanting to please the teacher. It’s why they complete assignments and it’s why the student strives to do well on it. If the child doesn’t like the teacher, it may be very hard to motivate him or her to do well.

But there are other reasons why good teachers are important. Teachers who love their students can help boost their students’ self esteem and show them that they’re special. Teachers can also help their students gain a love for learning. For kids who don’t have the best home life, a good teacher can create an environment where these kids want to be — a haven that is safe and comfortable.

So what makes a good teacher? You’d think the most important thing would be a teacher who teaches well, but in reality, a good teacher is one that loves his or her students. It’s a teacher who loves teaching and wants all of the students to succeed.

Another important quality is understanding. There are many teachers who don’t get that sometimes no matter how hard students try, they aren’t able to get a concept or aren’t able to concentrate in class. This could be because of a learning disability such as dyslexia or because of having ADD.

Students need to know that they can approach their teacher and ask questions without being made to feel unimportant or stupid.

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4 Ways to Teach Your Children the Value of a Dollar

July 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Let’s face it; every parent wants their kids to have a better life than they had. One of the most important ways to help ensure that happens is to make sure your kids attend college. But college isn’t cheap, neither for the students nor their parents. Even those brainiacs who manage to land full-ride scholarships could tell you that the off-campus expenses add up fast. Here are a few ways you can help your kid bear the expenses of college.

1. Instill a Lasting Monetary Values System

Teach them the value of money and hard work long before university applications are being filled out. The absolute best way for any young person to learn to value money is to earn it themselves. Most jobs for young people don’t pay extraordinarily well, so each dollar earned is hard won. They’ll be far less likely to spend frivolously on wasteful things if their own sweat went into earning their spending cash.

2. Reward Good Behavior and Effort

Some people view an allowance as something to give to very young children, but that’s not the only way to handle these things. College is a busy, stressful time. Not every kid has time to work his or her way through with a full time job in addition to classes. A small allowance can help your student get out to have a little fun when cash from his or her summer job runs thin.

3. Give Children an Occasional Surprise Financial Boost

If your student has been working since early on in high school, learned the value of money, and is well on the road to being masters of his or her own checkbook, give a financial boost once or twice a year. Send money with the Reach card, which allows you to preset the spending limits. Unlike a regular credit card, you need not worry about your kid going out and spending money in an uncharacteristically un-thrifty fashion.

4. Show Children How Money Has Evolved with Inflation Over Time

The penny is nearing extinction daily. Some stores already have opted to “ban the penny.” That’s not because pennies are too small to be worthwhile, but because it actually costs more to create a penny than a penny is now worth. Inflation is to blame for this. Teach your kids to value dollars, and don’t worry too much about teaching lessons based on coinage. With inflation continuing from today’s levels, even nickels may well be banished in coming decades!

By teaching your kids to handle money with the sincerity of a banker, they will develop a respect for the green stuff. That doesn’t mean they can’t have fun along the way, but it does mean you will have helped to create financially responsible young adults. And those financial lessons will last a lifetime, even when some things they learn in college are long forgotten. After all, do you remember what you learned in Philosophy 204?

Filed Under: Education, Learning Activities & Games

Using Dramatic Play in Kindergarten

July 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Group of children in a primary school in Paris

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Many worry that with so many children watching TV that dramatic play, or using your imagination, is dwindling in today’s kids. Too many rely on outside stimulus for entertainment. Creativity is important for many adults, and with this quality shrinking, it’s important to find a way to re-introduce kids to their imagination. How can this be done?

One way is by using dramatic play in schools, especially with kindergarteners. Most five-year-olds aren’t able to sit and pay attention for very long anyway. By using dramatic play, kids are able to basically play but are able to learn at the same time. For example, you could set up a situation where the kids run a restaurant. Each child is given a specific role in that situation such as server, manager, chef, patron, etc.

In each of the role, the children are given specific tasks. For example, the patron might need to take the total of the check and count out play money to pay for the bill. He or she will need to understand what money represents what and add up the totals in order to know what to pay. For older children, they could even be told to give a 15 percent tip and would have to figure out that amount.

There are a lot of principles that can be taught through dramatic play, but as long as it’s structured, student will be able to learn the information that the teacher is teaching the children. And yet it’s fun for the children as well.

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Dealing with the Tween Years of Junior High

June 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Middle School Theater Program (Saline) 

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A child reaching junior high is on the cusp of the first big change in his life. Sixth grade is probably the last year of sanity before puberty strikes, bringing with it many changes. A parent needs to exercise great patience in order to get through the tumultuous years.

Up until this point, it was easy for the student to focus on their school work without much distraction. The hormones still haven’t set in and life tends to be much simpler. However, once puberty starts in, the ability to focus on schoolwork starts becoming trickier. The temptations to distraction need to be battled, especially considering that the junior high years can make or break the student’s chances to get into a top high school. And even in systems where there is only one high school to funnel into, study habits need to be formed at this stage to overcome the next set of changes.

This is the stage of life where parents need to sit down with their children and have frank talks with them. Their child’s world is changing, and if there is no parental context, it can be a confusing time. The major issue to deal with is the fact that emotions go all over the map at this point. Having a talk about the consequences of their actions is extremely important.

Eventually, this too shall pass as it has for untold number of tweens. Parents that do their due diligence by working and talking with their children survive intact, as do their kids.

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Are Exectations too High for Kindergarten Students?

June 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Kindergarten in Frankfurt 

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Kindergarten used to be a place to introduce five year olds to the school system, while allowing them to act their age. No more. Now schools are using kindergarten as an educational experience instead of introducing them to the world that they are going to experience for the next thirteen years of their lives.

The idea that 5 year olds should start their first year with a bunch of skills that they may not have the ability to master is a bit ludicrous. Certainly teachers say that they have children show up who don’t have much education beforehand. However, it seems that more and more school systems are expecting children to come equipped with information that is beyond them at five years of age.

It is still the norm for many school districts to require that a child have learned specific information in order to move onto first grade. However, if parents don’t push back against the idea that a child needs to come to kindergarten with the information in place, they will find their child burned out before they finish their first year of school.

Too much emphasis is placed on ensuring that children measure up to a set of standards by certain ages. These standards do not take individual learning curves into account, and can label an intelligent child as slow for their age. Therefore the idea starts that this child needs to work harder in order to test better the next time around.

Parents need to let their children be children and expect that the school system will as well.

Filed Under: Brain Teasers, Education Tagged With: , ,

Giving Students Virtual Access to Their Work

May 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Computer technology is changing education every single day and teachers benefit from learning how to keep up with those changes. Often, new technology is made available by districts looking to impress parents and business leaders, but they fail to properly train staff on how to use new tools like electronic tablets and interactive whiteboards. The students of today who grew up in a digital age love these gadgets and teachers need to embrace them as well.

One tool that has become extremely popular is online grade books. Students can go to a website and see their grades for that quarter and their current average in every subject. Many districts also require teachers to keep information on the site about assignments and upcoming tests. The next logical step is an Internet based site where they can get virtual access to their work. There are a number of companies hard at work developing a virtual computer lab, so that students can remotely access what they have been working on in the computer lab at home.

The implications of a virtual computer lab are huge. In a college setting, students can do from their dorm what they used to have to walk across campus to the lab to do. In high school, if a student is out sick or school has to be cancelled for a few days for bad weather, students can continue to work on their projects.

When schools have made the switch to virtual labs, they have learned that not as much supervision is needed in the computer lab and the district doesn’t have to spend as much on computer hardware for the lab.

 

Filed Under: Education, Teacher Tips Tagged With: , ,

The Education Distinction: Junior High and Middle School

May 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Central Middle School in Quincy, Massachusetts. 

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It’s an easy certainty: the ideas are interchangeable; the concepts are the same. Junior high and middle school are identical principles, you believe. There are no distinctions between them, just the casual trade of their names.

This is incorrect.

Junior high is not the same as middle school, just as middle school is not the same as junior high. They are instead two separate formats: each with their own rules and requirements. It’s imperative to recognize this, if only to discontinue the assumptions.

The simplest — and most obvious — difference between these systems is their student demographics. Junior highs are defined by teens, favoring only the seventh and eighth grades (composed typically of individuals who are 13 and 14). Middle schools, however, include those who are in the sixth grade. This allows younger children to enter the educational population. This is the greatest distinction between these notions and can be traced back to their conceptions.

Junior high began as a way to bridge the distance between elementary schools and high schools. It was intended for students not yet able to enter their freshman years and was divided into more advanced academics.

This was not enough to satisfy many districts, however. The format was deemed too rigid and middle schools were formed to compensate — with younger students allowed to attend and the curriculum tailored to their needs.

And this difference remains today, with these concepts operating independently of each other (often within the same cities). They are not — and will never be — the same. This must be understood to avoid switching their names and branding them educational twins.

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A History of Grammar: Education

May 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Public Latin School of Boston 

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Education is forever changing — truths are redefined; statistics swell; and facts are shuffled within texts, their histories revealed with time. The principles of the past are dictated to new standards. And children are always learning what their parents never even considered.

Parents shouldn’t fear, however. There are some changes that can be easily grasped — such as the use of grammar schools within America and what they once represented.

Independence had been achieved: a new society was born. The United States was free from imperial rule, was trying to carve out a reputation within the world. Such a reputation couldn’t be earned without knowledge, however. The century was progressing, and each country had to keep pace. Grammar schools were used to do this.

These institutions — which had first arrived within the colonies in 1635 but had not spread beyond the borders of Boston — began to dot the eastern coastline. They were intended to offer a classical education, providing young adults (always boys, never girls) the foundational information they needed to succeed in universities. Their curriculums were highly specified: with Latin, Greek and other ancient languages taught. This was to grant an understanding of mathematics and literature; and the schools flourished during the developmental years of the United States.

Their popularity eventually declined, however. Education soon evolved and students of all social classes and genders were demanding knowledge. Grammar schools were deemed too limited in their appeal and were replaced with elementary organizations — which still dominate today.

The notion of grammar schools is one stuffed with elitism, and that was a sensibility never destined to last.

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Fresh Ideas for Your Child’s Show-and-Tell Day at School

April 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Boy dressed as pirate

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Show and tell is a great classroom activity, and a fun way to introduce children to public speaking . While the classic show and tell items kids bring year after year are nice, how about putting a fresh spin on the schoolroom tradition? Here are three new ideas to get you started:

Idea #1: Costumes Make Events Come Alive

Kids love to dress up, and what better way to tell about the family trip to a historic site or an interesting relative than historical costumes? Clothing not normally seen every day instantly draws curious attention, and costumes make history come alive. Family history is a great place to start; who wouldn’t love to show off in a Scottish kilt just like great-great-great-grandpa wore?

●      For more classroom fun, your child can act like their favorite historical figure; fielding questions like they imagine Pocahontas would—and being confused when asked about modern things—encourages lots of fun interaction.

●      Your child’s costume doesn’t have to go too far back into history. If a favorite relative was your child’s age in the fifties, they can don the same “historic” look Aunt Sally would have worn to school.

Idea #2: The Mystery Show and Tell

Sometimes a little mystery is exactly what’s needed to pique a child’s interest. Mix things up a little bit by having your child bring a special item hidden in a paper bag. Classmates will have fun guessing what’s inside based on clues your child gives about the item. Whoever guesses correctly can help show the item while your child tells why it’s special to them.

●      To make things more interactive, bring an object in a bag or box that classmates can take turns reaching into and feeling as your child shares facts about what’s inside.

●      Use smell to make the show more interesting. Items like a slice of Grandma’s famous bread your child helped make, a seashell and sand fresh from a beach trip, or spices brought from a faraway land make for a unique way to learn about something that may not even be new. Place the item in a bag and have your child instruct their classmates to close their eyes and take a sniff!

Idea #3: Bring Faraway Lands Closer

Foreign countries and exotic cultures are filled with scenes and ways of life children find fascinating. Why not take a little bit of a distant country and make it come to life with show and tell? If your family recently returned from Europe or Canada, or you have friends or relatives from Australia or Mexico, your child can share their culture connection with objects, foods, and pictures.

●      If you have a relative from a foreign country, ask if they will write a letter to your child’s classroom talking about what school is like in their country.

●      Your child can share phrases and words from foreign countries and have fun using them for the rest of the day. An English schoolboy would have chips for lunch, and a German girl would ask “Wie ghet’s?”

Show and tell looming? Get together with your child and start brainstorming! How will you add fun to show and tell?

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Advantages of Private School Education

March 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Private schools are thought by many to provide a more quality education to students. While it can be costly, many parents might not mind paying for it, since the value of learning has no price tag. Each generation of young people become the next generation of adults and experiences within the classroom can offer a percentage of who they become.

Some people consider private education to be a monetary privilege rather than an academic right. Since parents are paying for their children’s experience, they can have the opportunity to intervene in how they learn and are disciplined. In many cases the teachers and students are aware of appropriate protocol. Poor behavior is typically handled with individual students immediately. Expulsion is often a final consequence of ongoing misbehavior, making behavioral problems in general less likely.

It’s not uncommon for children within the private school settings to surpass their peers who attend public school because students are expected to be more responsible for their own academic success. The tuition which parents pay covers the cost of many textbooks and the curriculum offered can allow students to achieve greater educational success. Some college-level coursework is offered in many private high schools, while public school honors programs can be less advanced in some cases.

Since the class sizes are typically smaller in private schools. There may be more opportunities for students to get to know their peers and their teachers better. With this in mind, teachers can help to refine and build a curriculum geared for a student’s individual needs. The private school learning environment is still competitive, but more on the premise of academic achievement. Popularity and fashion are thought by some not to be an issue (at least not during school hours).

Although many students can thrive within various academic settings, they may receive higher testing results and may choose to drop out less often. Whether we choose private schools or not, it’s worth looking into.

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