<p>“5 things teachers want parents to know”</p>
<p>The thing that I the parent want to know is not among the 5. I want to know how my kid is doing in school. Closely observe the kid and assess her strengths and weakness and let me know.</p>
<p>Bad teachers CAN be fired from their jobs IF the supervising ADMINISTRATOR has done his/her job. I’ve seen times when the administrator wrote good evaluations of someone who was NOT doing a good job teaching the curriculum…and as a teacher that made me very angry. There is nothing more annoying than working alongside of a teacher who is not doing their job. Administrators should be evaluating staff honestly. Sadly, this is often the weak link.</p>
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<p>You have a pretty interesting style of rhetoric. And you are correct that it is pretty easy to “tweak” someone the right way to make them “come back.” Actually, in this case, the right way consists of restating the same conclusion over and over, regardless of the evidence posted by others that contradicts the original conclusions. </p>
<p>To be clear, you do seem to believe that teacher quality does indeed matter. Fwiw, that would be pretty to argue the opposite. In any case, I presented four countries where that case was supported by educated observation. However, you also make a case for the parental involvement to be necessary, and that is … not the case universally as there are a number of countries that have maintained or created very good to excellent school systems despite a level of parental involvement that could easily be called apathetic. </p>
<p>Simply stated, parental involvement represents either a supplement or a proxy for a failing educational system. This is very much what happens in the United States starting in middle school. It is, however, NOT a necessary component in education that do work and yield the expected result. Since you did read on the Finnish system, you must have noticed that in addition to the virtual absence of busywork outside the school hours (read homework) the Fins would be highly surprised by the so-called “parental involvement” in the academic process. This is NOT the same as parental involvement with their children’s life. Quite a difference. </p>
<p>Anyhow, here’s a simple quotation to illustrate what I just wrote:</p>
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<p>To be clear this is no a matter of degree of parental involvement; it is simply not popular nor warranted in the Finnish model. And that just happens to be the poster child for efficiency and quality in education. </p>
<p>While it might be beneficial in poor systems such as the US one, parental involvement in schooling is NOT a necessity in an efficient educational system. On the other hand, competent, well-trained, and highly educated in their specialty teachers is an unavoidable necessity.</p>
<p>PS Pasi Sahlberg is Director General of CIMO (in the Ministry of Education) in Helsinki, Finland. He is the author of “Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland?”</p>
<p>PPS There is an abridged version of the conclusions here: <a href=“http://www.pasisahlberg.com/downloads/Innovation%20InSight%20NYC%202011.pdf[/url]”>http://www.pasisahlberg.com/downloads/Innovation%20InSight%20NYC%202011.pdf</a>
Watch the PPT and a lot of what I have been writing in the past day might become a bit clearer. At least I’d hope! If you find the words “parental involvement” anywhere in the ppt, I’ll buy you a Latte at Starbucks!</p>
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<p>Nwcrazy, I also stand by my statement: you cannot see that which you refuse to see. The mental calculations were a prelude to algebra. As far as I’m concerned, a kid who can solve algebraic word problems and those found in SAT and ACT tests, understands algebra, regardless of what some so-called developmental expert asserts. So your brother was a late bloomer and thus everyone has to be?</p>
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<p>Actually he’s an adult now; runs his own web development business, is in a happy long-term relationship and plans to start on his phD in computer science next fall. At age 5.5, we had him privately tested by an expert specializing in the highly gifted: scored 99.99% on the WISC-III and got a perfect score on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices. The latter is so rare for a child of that age that it was not listed in the test designer’s norms tables; a representative of the company, when called, told our psychologist that said score was impossible and that she clearly must have made a mistake. So forgive me if I roll my eyes when yet another so-called expert expounds on what is and is not possible.</p>
<p>It might all be a matters of semantics. Here’s an article about things such as growing patterns. For all we know, growing patterns might be everyday’s … calculus. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.earlychildhoodconnections.com/documents/Algebra.pdf[/url]”>http://www.earlychildhoodconnections.com/documents/Algebra.pdf</a></p>
<p>Algebra in kindergarten? Works for me. :)</p>
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<p>What are the countries?</p>
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<p>I read that parents provide after-school programs and take their kids
on trips and to visit educational places. Is that not parental
involvement? This is not uncommon in Singapore too. Or Japan.</p>
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<p>I found the same site.</p>
<p>Are you telling me that parents don’t read to their kids in Finland?
They don’t talk to them during meals? They don’t imprint their beliefs
when they go to church? </p>
<p>Do they leave them watching the television for hours on end when they
are home from school? Do they take them to participate in music lessons
or sports training?</p>
<p>Did Jarkko Nieminen learn all of his tennis at school or was it his
parents that provided training for him since he was four years old?</p>
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<p>I disagree.</p>
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<p>I love picture on page 6 with the picture of the Nokia phone.</p>
<p>Here’s a chart of their stock for the last three years:</p>
<p>[NOK</a> - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com](<a href=“NOK | SharpCharts | StockCharts.com”>NOK | SharpCharts | StockCharts.com)</p>
<p>Their stock has lost 82% of it’s value over the last three years. Nokia
has been killed by two companies run out of a country with an awful
school system.</p>
<p>Then on page 9, they show a graphic of Nokia’s stock rise through the
1990s showing rapid growth through rapid economic growth, deregulation
of the financial markets, the collapse of the Soviet Union and
careless borrowing and lending.</p>
<p>Here’s a question for you: which did better over the last decade,
the Finnish stock market or the US stock market?</p>
<p>The presentation has a nice chart of unemployment vs education
performance. But it only goes up to 2009. Their unemployment as
of April 2012 was 8.1%. The unemployment rate for Australia, a
country which doesn’t do as well on education is surprisingly
only 5.4%. How is that possible?</p>
<p>I do agree with the chart on teaching less. At some point, maybe not
teaching at all. I also agree with testing less. Maybe Finnish schools
have a lot in common with homeschools. Except for the teachers part.</p>
<p>I’m sure that you read that there are school districts in the US that
are absolutely world class and perhaps better than any other country
in the world. Do they have perfect teachers? Does parental involvement
matter there? Is it perhaps, a mix?</p>
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<p>Not a bad article on what’s possible but do elementary majors that are usually generalists have the background to teach basic foundations? It’s easy to understand kids getting confused over arithmetic or fractions when the underlying foundations of arithmetic are so complex. We take the rules, processes and procedures for granted because they are in our brain muscle memory but the actual foundations are really, really messy. Would going through these with young kids help in understanding on arithmetic? If you can understand the foundations, then algebra is a piece of cake.</p>
<p>books.google.com/books?id=7<em>Z27SvIGKAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs</em>ge<em>summary</em>r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false</p>
<p>“Jennifer Taylor-Cox, Ph.D., is the executive director of Innovative Instruction, a company that provides educational consulting services, located in Severna Park, Maryland. A former classroom teacher and academic support teacher, Jennifer presents workshops, seminars, and keynote speeches on mathematics education and differentiated instruction.”</p>
<p>xiggi has a good pdf link. If the author is teaching elementary kids, we could have much better educated students, though their SAT/ACT scores may not be higher (who cares).</p>
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<p>Okay. but baseline respect for a profession must be earned just as individual respect must be. If teachers as a profession get a low degree of respect, why is that? There are no lotteries or government bureaus that assign baseline respect. Why have they not earned higher respect?</p>
<p>In terms of social value, the teaching of the young is a noble endeavor that ranks up at the top, right up there with the healing of the sick. With this head start you’d think that teachers would be respected as much as doctors. But somehow that natural advantage has been squandered. Teachers are the Rodney Dangerfields of the professions. How did that happen?</p>
<p>BCE, just an observation here. You might find it easier to follow an argument when reading to the bottom of a post, as opposed to dissect it line by line for the purpose of questionning a few words. Your question >>which countries<< was answered in the subsequent paragraph, not to mention previous post.</p>
<p>Further, as I alluded in post 81, there is an obvious ambiguity in the use of the term parental involvement. Considering the scope and nature of this thread, I have related parental involvement to schooling and education. Not sports, entertainment, or pigeon homing! After all, we are talking about our system of education here. </p>
<p>At least, I was.</p>
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<p>Well, if you’re going to be true to your analogy, then teaching should be up there with being a nurse or physician assistant, and those don’t get as much respect as being a doctor. Money and barrier to entry are at least two things that separate being a doctor and being a teacher (or nurse and teaching assistant.) </p>
<p>It also doesn’t help that the teacher’s union comes off like the Teamsters.</p>
<p>Of course, there are other cultures in which being a teacher is revered, but then these cultures value education more in general.</p>
<p>Okay, so here’s a totally empirical, not quantified observation with respect to the xiggi/bce conversation:
In my world, you’re both right.
On one hand, I was raised by a single mom who worked hard and was a high school drop out in Canada. She had such complete teacher anxiety she wouldn’t even go to pt night. I cannot ever recall her asking about what I was learning or how I was doing at school. (years later, we discovered she had a learning disability.) nonetheless, despite plenty of mischief, I did exceptionally well at school, and at one point, when it was fashionable, was in a gifted program. As we moved about a fair deal, I discovered that gifted programs were not exactly fashionable in all districts.
During grades five and six, I was part of a Summerhill style experiment with open concept learning. In my case, I believe that began an era of “math gap” for me, though I still wrote the gauss and was considered a later school’s most gifted math gal. In reading and writing, however, I was able to move ahead at lightening pace and was at college-level material by the time we moved to another district.
In that district, they sat me out the first year – which I spent in the library on “independent study” – because my mom wouldn’t let them accelerate me (I was already a year younger than my classmates, and in truth, was a troublemaker.)</p>
<p>So I truly had no parental involvement academically, but had some great teachers along the way, but at other points had no supervision whatsoever, and a fair share of teachers ill-equipped to address my twin demons of being both smart and highly unruly. I don’t know if it’s fair to say I flourished, but I certainly survived and rather enjoy the life I’ve been able to create for myself. My love of learning and curiosity has been greatly enhanced by a few special mentors I encountered along the
way, most of them teachers, notably high school and later, university (and a few employers after that.)</p>
<p>So I totally, completely “get” xiggi’s point that parental involvement academically is unnecessary or the principal factor in academic success.
But at the same time, as difficult as my mom’s life had become, I believe there were “ways of being” in her manner that made a major contribution to my academic success. One was discipline insofar as I was not allowed to watch more than an hour tv, and I always had chores, and they had to be done first. Another was the notion that I was wholly responsible for entertaining myself – even if this was often by necessity. This made for a rich “mental” life – I painted, I wrote stories, I orchestrated neighborhood plays, etc. The other trait she had was a tendency to tell me to “go find out/figure out” the answer to questions I’d ask and tell her. </p>
<p>I really believe these little things – the shape of it, not the content – are the things that inspire a child to learn. Or to want to learn. Or to know how to learn.</p>
<p>I spent a summer in my early days as an assistant Montessori teacher. My takeaway was that if you give any kid a little structure and a challenge, they love to learn. But they need the structure, and they need a challenge to get hooked on that particular “high” – not unlike a runner’s high.</p>
<p>But if a child grows up with a sense that their parents think teachers are stupid, that there’s something “wrong” with the challenges they’re given, that the structure doesn’t apply to them, that somehow their individual uniqueness trumps the classroom, the material, the teacher, AND if they’re pretty certain their parents will intervene, then the “supports” to learning are undermined.</p>
<p>So, on this hand, parental support IS critical to successful education, and I’ve seen my share of what I would call educational sabotage by parents who somehow need to feel vastly superior than the folks who are spending the work day with their children. I often wonder if it comes from a deep and hidden sense of guilt, or jealousy, or desire to ve first and best in their children’s eyes.</p>
<p>When you live and work in a country like ours that is so unkind to professional women in terms of maternity leave, or so defined by long hours of work and a desperate need to fend off a lack of medical care and other basic resources, I think it changes the complexion of things. So too does the fact that we don’t spend much on early education, which is where I feel the wheels are set in motion for academic success.</p>
<p>I gave a lot of thought to the comment that parental support is only necessary in a failing
system, and I think there’s some truth to that. But at the core, the basic values and worldview of a child has to be oriented in such a way as to accept the teaching, work with the structure you’ve got and extend it if it’s not challenging enough.</p>
<p>Compartmentalizing “school” and “life” in terms of learning and working is also a problem. It’s a continuum. It needs to be treated as such. The things that happen outside of school, the unstructured things, are opportunities for cogitation, exploration. Like a muscle that needs a rest, it needs to be unstressed, enjoyable, but that doesn’t mean the “learning” isn’t happening. Maybe that’s exactly why Finland does so well – they play!</p>
<p>I have no clue as to how to effect the change in attitude required to have the U.S. regain it’s rightful place in the world in terms of educating all of it’s children (no question it does a great job with some). And I am as opinionated as the next person. But when it came to the classroom, what I taught my child is that whatever the circumstances, it was wholly his own responsibility to learn the material and share his gifts with his peers. There were no exceptions. He did not get to drop a class or whine about the teacher. He was welcome to discuss the shortcomings of any class or instruction and then was asked how HE could
improve it.</p>
<p>I didn’t choose that approach to be apathetic or uninvolved (on the contrary, I made many contributions to his school). I chose that strategy to give him the gift of self-management, and right or wrong, it’s a gift I find many children today need.</p>
<p>BCEagle - no I didn’t contact the school board about that or any of the other issues. In hindsight I should have but at the time I always worried that it would come back to bite me or worse, it would be taken out on my kids.</p>
<p>Fall girl…did you contact the school administration? That would be your first step…not contacting the school board. Contacting the superintendent of schools would be done if the school administrator didn’t address your issues. THEN contacting the school board would be next…assuming the issues weren’t addressed.</p>
<p>We had one teacher in high school who actually taught a lab science but neglected to do the LABS. The students did one lab in the fall, and another in the late spring. Sorry…not enough. Oh…and the teacher never returned the fall lab to the students. I went to the science department chairperson first…but didn’t really get an answer. I went then to the school principal with all my documentation in hand. By the following year when my second kiddo had the same teacher…ALL of the labs were done in a timely fashion…with immediate return with feedback.</p>
<p>thumber- that is a good manager. I bet there was documentation in the personnel file to document the meeting the principal had with the teacher.</p>
<p>It bemuses me somewhat that posters who are parents of highly accomplished students at ultra-selective colleges have so little respect for teachers in general. Did these students achieve their success in spite of their schooling? I don’t question that there are poor teachers in every school district, yet surely, for such successful students, the good teachers outnumber the bad? Somehow, in my own experience and that of my three ds, there were very, very few poor teachers. Perhaps we live in a bubble.</p>
<p>On the matter of respect, for individuals or for professions: my kids were required to treat every teacher respectfully. Whether they actually respected the teacher or not, whether the teacher “earned” their respect or not - that was their business. They were welcome to make their own judgments but they were obligated to behave with respect. I think it might be challenging for some students to follow classroom rules and make an effort on assignments if what they’ve absorbed at home is that teaching is a profession for lazy incompetents, or that individual teachers are unintelligent or unworthy of their attention. Or, as kmcmom13 said so much better:
As a parent, I only had to intervene once. Common sense indicates that we’ll do that when necessary. Though our definitions of “necessary” vary considerably.</p>
<p>Frazzled, agreed.</p>
<p>Kmcmom, I do appreciate the lengthy post, but I need to clarify a point. I do think that parental involvement is beneficial and important. What I objected to is that it is necessary to FIX education. And the example of Finland amply demonstrates that. Fixing education does not require parental involvement anymore that fixing medicine requires it. Fixing education requires systemic changes and a focus on excellence. </p>
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<p>Again, having parents involved in the life of their children is essential. That is parenting. But that is a different concept than fixing education.</p>
<p>And in this context, education is really defined as the K-12. We have the best system of tertiary education. And that one does not have much in the form of parental involvement. But not for lack of trying!</p>
<p>@LoremIpsum–</p>
<p>Your kid/adult is obviously a rare exception.</p>
<p>@BCEagle91- I should have been more clear. The thing is that my brother doesn’t really play chess much. Perhaps, once every couple of years for the heck of it. That’s what makes his ability to visualize the entire board with pieces pretty cool. There are other things he does that freaks his fellow scientists…but that’s straying too far from the topic.</p>