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Mar 2007
Teach child difference between learning, grades
March 29, 2007 12:00 PM Filed in: High School
| College
 |
Dear Dr. Fournier: I am frustrated with the amount of emphasis placed on grades in my daughter’s school. I know grades are important for getting into college, but my daughter gets so stressed out by a C that it almost paralyzes her. How can I help her understand that there is more to education than grades? |
The Assessment: Our children’s grades can be motivators or they can be curses. Imagine, for a moment, that you are graded on your job the way your child is graded in school. Your boss gives you a daily grade on job performance – perhaps a 68 on your last memo and a 76 on your project presentation. Most employees dread even an annual evaluation by their supervisors; how would we react to this daily roller coaster, wondering how the boss will grade each move or decision?
As adults, we do not have to react to daily criticism from these pigeon-holing measures. Instead, we can be proactive as we ask ourselves, "where do I go from here?" and attempt to self-evaluate and continue our development.
For our children, fear of being in the wrong pigeonhole many times devastate all possibility of seeing grades for what they are – instruments that pinpoint challenges and direct energy. They might react to a 65 on a test by saying, "I’m stupid," even though more than half of the material is correct.
If we want our children to become proactive, we must help them see grades not as the end of learning but as the beginning. This turns the curse into a motivator.
What To Do: Talk to your daughter and clearly define what a grade is – a measure of what a student is able to give back in a teacher-determined format over which the student has no control. To do well on a test, and student must learn the material and must be able to give back the information in the accepted format, regardless of the strategy the teacher uses (true or false, multiple choice, essay or class participation).
A lower-than-expected grade can be the result of not knowing the material tested, not being test-savvy, or a combination of both. Also, remember that the goal is not just for your child to do well in school, but to do well in life. The process of learning might be more important than what is being learned.
For example, a student who successfully completes a science project has learned the process of planning for a long-term project, creating a hypothesis, testing it, and analyzing the results. This process will help a child succeed in life. Understanding the subject matter of a fourth-grade science project will only ensure success in school.
Used proactively, grades are directives for the future rather than regrets of the past. But in order to help your child chart the future, you must review together all tests, quizzes, homework and other graded papers. A test that goes unanalyzed is a worthless effort.
When your child brings home graded papers, have her assess all the points made on the test. Then for each point that was lost, have your child determine if it was a learning loss or a test-savvy loss, and then develop strategies to avoid similar mistakes in the future. As patterns emerge, set up a teacher conference before your child’s long-term learning begins to suffer. In other words, rather than having a parent conference reactively, have one proactively as soon as you can identify trends that need to be turned around.
Teachers can help parents assume this proactive stance by making sure that all graded materials are returned to students and parents. There is no way to improve unless parents and students know where to aim.
It is time we see grades as a motivator – a measure of our children’s potential for success. If failure is what we continue to measure, is it any wonder that our children fail?
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Tricks to help your child develop spelling skills
March 22, 2007 12:00 PM Filed in: Skill Sets
| Elementary
School
 |
Dear Dr. Fournier: I work with my son each week on his spelling lists. He knows them when I call them out to him, but then misses half of them on the test. Does he have a memory problem? |
The Assessment: The scene is a familiar one for many households: the child’s weekly spelling test at school has become a weekly chore at home.
The child’s primary technique for learning how to spell is asking his parents to call out the words. Although many parents feel this is the least they can do, spelling can initiate an inappropriate teaching role at home that only intensifies later on. The child who feels it is great to study with mom and dad in many cases means it feels secure to study with mom or dad – until the pressure of adding other subjects leads to a homework hassle.
Spelling is one of the first independent learning tasks that a child is assigned. But students often are not taught the strategies for independent learning, and the default mechanism can be attachment to mom or dad.
The good news is that just as spelling is a typical subject for a child to develop dependence on his or her parents, so too is it the perfect place for the parents to help their child to develop independence.
Many parents go through the frustrating experience of drilling their children on spelling words. Despite their efforts, children often do not make the expected 100 on the spelling test. These children do not have memory problems – they have learning-strategy problems.
Asking a child to study his spelling words and then immediately drilling on the words tests only the child’s short-term memory. Learning how to spell should instead be for long-term recall.
What To Do: To foster independent study, have your child use a tape recorder with two blank tapes.
On one tape write "Study Tape" and on the other write "Test Tape." Have your child first say each word and then spell it on the Study Tape. On the Test Tape, your child should say each spelling word, pausing afterward long enough to write out the word.
Next, have your child create a Test Sheet with six columns. The first column contains the correct spelling of the words. The next five columns are labeled with the days of the week until the spelling test.
Each day your child should listen to the Study Tape as part of homework. However, he should not attempt to take a practice test right away. Have him wait an hour or so after he listens to the Study Tape.
To take the practice test, your son should listen to the Test Tape and write the words on a sheet of paper as the tape dictates them. When the test is complete, he should compare this paper to the correctly spelled words on the Test Sheet.
If he misspells a word on his practice test, he should write the incorrect spelling on the Test Sheet in the column for that day. For example, if the child misspells the word "house" on Monday’s practice test, he writes the incorrect spelling in Monday’s column next to the correct spelling of the word.
By the time your child has followed this procedure three days in a row, he will know exactly which words he knows and which ones give him trouble. After this initial study work is done, you can help him develop memory tricks to remember the words he continues to miss.
This learning technique allows appropriate parental support while developing your son’s independence.
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Dealing with deficiency notices
March 15, 2007 12:00 PM Filed in: Middle
School |
Skill
Sets
 |
Dear Dr. Fournier: My son is
in seventh grade. He is bright but his grades
don’t show it. He does not study as hard as I
think he should. He says he does study but can’t
seem to "get it." I try to motivate him but we
end up fighting.
This week I was cleaning his room and found a deficiency notice that he had never given to me. I ask every day how school is going and he always says it is fine. So now he is lying to me. I don’t know what to do. |
The Assessment: In an effort to keep parents informed of their child’s performance, many schools send home a mid-term report at some point during the six- or nine-week grading period. Although these reports are well-intentioned, they are no different from anything else in life: Everything good has a potential negative.
The good in mid-grading-period reports is obvious: Parents are kept informed of their child’s progress while there is still time for the student to improve his or her grades.
However, the negative connotations begin with the language used: "deficiency report" means a declaration of failure and fear of condemnation. That combination can paralyze our children with the loss of courage to persevere. The negativity is perpetuated at home with arguments, accusations and defensiveness. It is no wonder that students attempt to escape this negativity by "misplacing" their deficiency reports or "forgetting" to show them to their parents.
It is up to parents to turn this around, to seize the positive aspects of mid-grading-period reports and to refuse to react to the negatives.
What To Do: Change the language from one of failure to one of work-in-progress. You might call this the "Half-Time Score Board" or the "Now I Know What To Do Report."
Explain to your son that the purpose of the report is to let him know what learning is left to be done in the rest of the grading period. Help him to understand that there is time to accomplish this learning, and help him come up with strategies to do so.
Next, find out when your child’s grading periods start and end, and when the mid-grading-period reports are due. Put these dates on a calendar, highlighting the date for your "Half-Time Score Board."
When the mid-grading-period reports are sent home, use this time to celebrate what your child has accomplished and set new strategies for success in the second half of the "game."
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Teach child new concept of 'career choice'
March 08, 2007 12:00 PM Filed in: High School
 |
Dear Dr. Fournier: My high-school son is sure he is going to be a journalist. He is taking geometry right now and is doing poorly. He says it does not relate to journalism and he will never need it in real life. He has had the same attitude about other courses that he does not see as relevant to his chosen career path. I am glad he is interested in journalism, but how can I get him to take his "blinders" off? |
The Assessment: Geometry is a subject in which students learn to think, yet for some students it is no more than a necessary nuisance – a course they must take to get into college.
The more I think about these two views of geometry, the more I am inclined to believe that its "nuisance" reputation is based on the isolation with which the subject is taught rather than the merits of geometry itself.
High school should be a time for students to develop knowledge, not just parrot it back to teachers on tests. However, high school has dichotomized learning by dividing subject matter into credits that must be earned for college.
Students go from class to class to be exposed to different credits, with each class led by a teacher who specializes in that particular subject. The history teacher only teaches history and the foreign language teacher skips the demographic implications of the populations whose language takes precedence.
Instead of developing knowledge, students begin to equate their future with dedicating themselves to one subject: "I’ll never be an architect because I hate geometry," or "The only class I like is history, so I guess I will be a history teacher." Perhaps the worst statement is, "I don’t know what I want to be. I don’t like anything."
As parents, we must help our children develop a new concept of "career choice" based on a future that will require diversity of thinking. Our children must overcome the pigeonholing of specialized niches in education and begin to see how these subjects come together, each essential to a career path development.
What To Do: Career planning once meant choosing one career for long-term development. The concept might have held true for our parents’ careers, but not for our children’s future. Today’s parents and teachers must become aware of changes in the U.S. workplace so that we can prepare today’s children for their future.
Starting as early as ninth grade, students must begin to research multiple activities they could carry out in life and study their "niche" courses with a wider view. Here is one example:
"I will major in English with a double minor in biology and Japanese. During my summers, I will focus on a third language. In English, I will stress journalism and take electives in graphic design or marketing and sociology. So what can I do? I can work with a multinational pharmaceutical company, hospital or scientific journal directed to national or international business people or health professionals. I can work in internal communications, media relations, research and development or marketing, given my understanding of market demands and social research."
Instead of narrowing our children’s view of the world, we need to let high school broaden their vision for the future.
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A look at how to choose your battles
March 01, 2007 12:00 PM Filed in: Pre-School
 |
Dear Dr. Fournier: My life is a constant struggle with my pre-school son. He seems to test me at every turn. I understand he is exploring his boundaries, but the clashes are wearing me out, and we haven’t even started "real" school yet! How do I pick my battles? |
The Assessment: As parents, our duty is to instill in our children a sense of values – the things that are not open to negotiation. This can range from telling our 3-year-old not to cross the street to teaching a 9-year-old the importance of honesty.
Whenever parents introduce a new set of values or rules, children will naturally try to test them. This is when parents must know when to "pick their battles." If a battle is important and the child continues to put up a fight, parents need to ask themselves who is stronger and find effective strategies to remedy the situation. These remedies require parental creativity, as well as patience and stamina.
As our children grow, and their values system expands, we can begin to introduce elements in life that are open to negotiation. Then as the children mature into adults, they are ready to make their own choices and pick their own battles.
What we must recognize is that a parent-to-child relationship is distinctly different from an adult-to-adult relationship. Yes, each interaction should be based on mutual respect, but a parent-to-child relationship demands more. As parents, we must balance responsibility, love and respect for our children without giving up the rights and duties of parenthood.
What To Do: To avoid continuous confrontations, parents need to determine what family rules and values are non-negotiable. These are rules that, when broken, lead to unnecessary arguments, hurt feelings, and a sense of lack of control. Once you have determined them, discuss with your child the difference between negotiable and non-negotiable rules.
For example, one of my friends had a rule about breakfast cereals – no marshmallows or sugar-coated cereal in the morning. But while grocery shopping one day, her child asked, "If we can eat a chocolate doughnut for breakfast, why not marshmallow cereals?" The parent could have replied, "Because I said so," but instead she praised the child’s logic and promised that she and her husband would review the rule. In this family, choosing a breakfast cereal was negotiable; brushing teeth every morning was not.
Instructing your child on the difference between negotiable and non-negotiable rules can help you to choose your battles, and can help your son prepare for his own choices as he enters "real" school and beyond.
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