Teach your kid to love learning

I went to a book discussion about the "global achievement gap" (in my previous post, I reviewed the book and discussed lingering questions).  It was a good discussion, there was a lot of theory and "this is how school should be", but obviously there's a way to go to get to the ideal, fully engaged learning environment advocated in the book.  Here’s some of what I took away from the discussion and my thoughts on the question raised at the end of the discussion, okay, this is great for the long term, but what can we do tomorrow?  

Encourage your child to describe their experiences - Job candidates expect that their resume will speak for them, that they can just hand over the piece of paper and sit back.  But no, employers want candidates to actually be able to articulate the experiences on their resume – what happened, how did they contribute to it, what did they learn?  I like these questions as ones to keep in mind when my kids come home from a field trip or after competing in a sporting event.

Talk about the places you go, the things you see -  As parents, we can help our kids make connections in their daily lives to the things they have learned. When we take our kids to the zoo or to the museum (and we should, even though we’ll be saying “don’t touch that” and wondering how much they are going to charge us when our kid writes his name on the Declaration of Independence), don’t just point stuff out.  Instead of “look, there’s a zebra”, talk about the animal, read the little info sign.  Where does it naturally live, why does it have stripes, what does it eat?  Ask your kid questions to make him think – is that a white animal with black stripes or vice versa?  Why is it black and white instead of orange and black like a tiger?  Can he outrun a zebra?  Consider the career aspects.  Who takes care of the animals, what do they probably have to learn to be able to keep them healthy?

Kids should blow stuff up - this was our Superintendent's joking response to a  high school student’s questions about science classes (and he added the warning that they really shouldn’t because they could get arrested or suspended) – but you get the idea.  They should be encouraged to experiment and wonder, what happens if….

Ask your kids about school, but not just the academics - Is she excited about what she did in school today?  Ask your kid about her school friends.  Does she have any, what are they like?  Who are they?  What do they like about them?

United Cakes of America - made by the kids in my daughter's school at the end of their study about the states

Assignments should require teamwork - In our global economy, being able to work in teams and with a diverse group is important.  At home, partner your kids in doing their chores.  Instead of it being one kid’s turn to wash the dishes, pair them up to get the job done.  Have them work together to rake the leaves or take out the trash.  Let the kids plan and make dinner.  Be more daring and don’t tell them every step to get the task done.  What's this look like at home?  My kids are upstairs folding laundry and debating over whether they should match their socks in two's (because, as my son is arguing, everybody in the family only has 2 feet) or in three's (my daughter's side - she has found 3 socks that are the same).  I trust they will come up with a conclusion.

Watch yourself - In getting their teacher certifications, some teachers video tape and then watch themselves teaching a lesson.  Parents, would you dare?  I watch “The Nanny” so I know that is never a happy video tape and am admitting that I’m going to skip this one myself.  But its a good idea to at least step back and review, even n our own minds, what we just said or did and did it represent the emotion and thoughts we wanted it to?

Appreciate other languages, show pride in a native language - There was a discussion around viewing being bi- or multi-lingual as an asset rather than a deficit. Americans are probably the least bi-lingual people of all the industrialized nations (I just made up this fact, don’t get mad if I’m wrong).  No, you can’t make your kid fluent in French by tomorrow, but you can teach him to appreciate other languages and respect people who speak another language.  Instead of harrumphing at the waitress with limited English, you can mention to your kid how hard it must be to learn a new language and make a living.  Encourage your child to help the ESL student in his class.  If in your household, you speak another language, a native language from where you came, don’t let your child be ashamed of that.  Don’t let them lose their native language just to trade it in for English.  Encourage them to speak both.  Even if they pout about it now, they will be thankful in the long-run.

I liked the teacher’s answer to the question “what is the purpose of education?”  He said that we should have faith that if we teach our kids to love learning and the process of learning, they will be fine.  Its so simple, right.  Not that we teach them to bubble in an answer sheet, because who enjoys that?

Just teach the kids to love learning.

There's a global achievement gap...now what?

I attended our school Superintendent's Book Club discussion on the Global Achievement Gap (click back to Tuesday for the book review).  If you are remotely related to schools and live in a diverse district, you've no doubt heard about the achievement gap.  This is the difference in performance between Black and Hispanic students and White students; and depending on where you live, I think Asian kids fall on either side of the gap.  The idea around the global achievement gap is that the racial difference is important, but not as important as the difference between the performance and readiness of American kids as compared to other kids around the world.  When it comes to being creative, thinking critically, solving problems, communicating effectively – our kids are falling behind, way behind.

The Superintendent and his panel of guests, a corporate human resources executive, a local teacher and principal, and representative from an education organization, discussed the ideas and theories of the book, and fielded a bunch of questions from the audience.  However, by the end of the night, there was still one question in my head: now what?

Now that we’ve read this book and understand why our children are 15^th or 26^th or whatever ranking we’ve fallen to today, now what?

• Have all the teachers read the book?  Are they now going to ask kids engaging questions rather than expecting rote memorization?
• Have all the Principals read the book?  Are they going to encourage the teachers to provide innovative, active lessons for everybody in the class not just the kids who seem like they will go to college?
• Does this mean our kids will no longer report “we watched a movie today in class” when they get home from school?  
• Does this mean kids won’t be putting their heads on the table in the library and watching their friends scramble to find a meaningful, interesting book to check out in five minutes?  
• Now that we all agree that teaching kids how to answer standardized questions is not really preparing them for anything, does it mean that our kids won’t get reams of review sheets that take up two weeks of classtime?  
• Does that mean that we will now stop acting like they are sitting for a test to become master of the world when its MSA week and allow them to do other academic work during that time?

As for my kids, we've had some really good teachers.  We are in a good school district, great actually.   In fact, its the best in the state and our state is ranked as one of the best in the nation. But yet, as Wagner points out in his book, schools such as ours are the ones that can surprise you in not preparing kids as well as they should.  Some of the classroom activities that Wagner observed, I've noticed in my own kids' schools and not until I looked at it through his lense, did I realize how it could've been better.  We expect, almost accepted the notion, that kids aren't learning anything in urban schools, Wagner says.  Just the other day I read an article that said the city of Philadelphia is planning to close all of its public schools by 2018.  My head is still reeling as to how that is even a political or social decision that slipped by its citizens and its parents.  And I don't even understand what it means, really - where are the kids going to go to school?  Anyway, back to our wonderful school district.

Although we do great in all the numbers that are supposed to make a school district great - SATs, percentage of students taking A/P classes, state standardized tests - Wagner says that all that stuff isn't always an indicator that kids are coming out of school as critical thinkers, skilled problem solvers, or good communicators.  They're just good test takers.  Hmmm.  So back to my question - now what?  Now what is my school going to do to help my kids catch up with the rest of the world?

There were some really good points brought up in the book club discussion, so don’t let me make you think that it wasn’t interesting and useful, just because I have some questions left. (One of the main points was kids should learn to ask questions, afterall.)  But its getting a bit long and folks' attention span is short (I'm surprised and pleased you've made it this far), so I'll round up some tips for parents in part II. 

The Book I'm Carrying Around: The Global Achievement Gap

The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need --And What We Can Do about It by Tony Wagner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Critical thinking, creativity, leading by influence, adaptability, collaborating, effective communication - these are some of the survival skills that Wagner suggests that new adults will need as they head into college and work.  How does our child rate in these areas?  How well is your child's school preparing him/her?


I'm reading this for our School Superintendent's book discussion and its a topic I am quite interested in.  There is a lot of pressure for rigor in the classroom and teaching kids a lot of stuff - but it seems little emphasis on how to do any of it well, anymore than necessary to pass the MSAs, at least, or how to understand what they have done.  They are being taught basic probability and how to read a bar graph in 1st grade, but what's the point when they still don't know what it really means and can't add 7+5 because they run out of fingers.


Wagner analyzes why students are being taught the way they are - hint: standardized tests, NCLB - and how that is so out of line with developing the skills and abilities that they need to actually succeed in college and in the workforce.  He takes a look at teacher training programs, as well as how children process, or don't process, information in the new digital age.


One main point that he stresses is that what used to work for education, doesn't work anymore.  There was a time when only a certain percentage of the population went to college and those were the ones who the education system thought needed to be prepared for all the higher skills - thinking, analyzing, problem-solving, learning higher math and foreign languages.  However, now, in our global economy, even the worker who will never leave the shores of the United States is competing with people all over the world for their job, whether manufacturing, engineering, management, even agriculture.  Everybody these days needs to develop higher order skills and better communication skills to be successful, not just those who we expect to go to college.


I'm almost finished, I'm looking forward to the "what we can do about it" part.



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