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Middle School
How to bring sanity to the world of final exams
December 11, 2007 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Final exams are always a battle at my home. My eighth grade daughter studies every night past midnight, and I worry that she doesn’t get enough rest. My sixth grade son says he can’t study because the teacher has not told him what is on the test. My ninth grade son doesn’t think his finals should disrupt his life and studies only when his social calendar allows time. How can I bring sanity back into my house? |
The Assessment: One of my yearly rituals is to write a column this time of year, answering questions from parents who want to know how to best help their children prepare for final exams. Unlike other holiday traditions, this is one ritual I would like to do away with – or at least move to the beginning of the semester. Parents could avoid these questions by working with their children from first day of school.
Because of procrastination, this last-minute madness continues as each semester winds down. Parenting is a full-time job, and as our children get older, it becomes harder for a parent to help each child. On top of that, we have obligations to our employers, elderly parents or disabled children (I could list a hundred more) that fill our daily routines. Add to all of that the shopping, parties and decorating that come with December, and it’s not surprising that I receive so many letters this time of year. I sympathize with the struggles parents endure, but we must make a decision regarding what is important in our children’s lives.
While your children manifest different symptoms, they actually face a similar issue – final exam preparation – and resolve it in their own unique ways. Your children may demonstrate excessiveness, passiveness or avoidance in their exam preparation, but the real problem begins with their perspective of learning. This is one of the most prevalent issues facing our educational institutions.
There is a major misconception held by teachers, parents and students alike, that the goal of school is simple memorization and regurgitation. An education like this doesn’t teach students to think creatively. A degree from this learning system isn’t worth the paper it is written on in today’s global workplace.
What To Do: Like most students, your children don’t understand the difference between “studying” and “learning.” Can you solve your dilemma this semester? No, but you can make a decision for next semester that will change the rest of their lives. The solution is so simple, but I can’t get parents to take me up on it. There should be one rule in your home that must be obeyed without exception – Studying is not allowed!
Here are the rules:
When your children come home from school each day, they are not to do their homework – they are to learn it. This radical change of perspective allows them to understand and “own” knowledge, as opposed to merely memorizing it.
Homework is not complete until students prove that they would be able to make a good grade on a surprise quiz the next day. They can do this by giving you a lecture (without notes) or writing a mock test to be taken two hours after they finish.
Every test, quiz or homework grade should be on the refrigerator, next to a list of what they missed. They will learn this material later in the week or on the weekend.
This is very simple, yet too many parents will not make their children understand that studying is for those that want to be passively schooled. Learning is the first step toward receiving an education – a requirement for someone who wants to have an independent, significant life and who wants to become a leader.
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Helping a grieving child
October 23, 2007 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I worry
about my 7th grade daughter because she has a
hard time staying focused in school, and her
teachers are already considering testing for
attention problems. She gets frustrated easily if
she cannot understand a new concept or complete a
new task right away. She wants everything to come
easily. If it doesn't, then she gives up – unless
it's something she's really interested in. If it
captures her interest, then she stays focused
until she learns it.
I believe my daughter’s challenge is somehow related to her father’s battle with cancer. My husband was in and out of the hospital for four years. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but sometimes I wonder how deeply this has affected her. Fortunately, my husband is now cancer-free and doing great. What do you think? |
The Assessment: As owner of a business, I have more employees asking for time off to take their pets to the doctor than I do for employees asking for time to take family members. Our love for pets in this nation is growing as fast as the industry is able to come up with new food, clothes, and even hotels for them. Now, in the city of Nochigi, China, the first canine nursing home has been established at the price of $800 a month. It won’t be long before this new service hits the United States.
Why am I talking about the pet industry? Because so many of you have pets and know what I am talking about. Now replace the word “pets” with “dads.” Suddenly, that love grows even more. Love is an incredible thing, and when the one you love is at risk, the fear of loss tops all priorities.
How many students can take off school and spend the day with a parent while dad or mom gets their chemotherapy? How many of them can openly say, “My dad’s hair is falling out, and I am afraid he is going to die?” Answering questions from a social studies book on the Louisiana Purchase is impossible when you are wondering at school if your dad – the one that used to take you to the park, coached your soccer team, and liked bubblegum ice cream just like you did – is going to die. What is it about our school systems that can’t understand that grieving is a human process and not just for adults?
What To Do: When I give conferences, teachers and parents always ask me for suggestions regarding what they should read. For 27 years I have said no one should teach until they have read Death and Dying by Kubhler Ross.
Ross teaches us that grieving is a process, not a single event. The stages of grieving are anger, denial, negotiation, depression, and finally acceptance. A child whose parent has lived with cancer has lost the safety of feeling invulnerable based on the unconditional belief that the parent will always be there, that the parent’s unique and unconditional love will hug them as they solve their problems and heal their wounds.
In my practice, I have honestly seen more attention given to someone who has lost a pet than to a child who has lost a parent. We need a national program for all teachers to learn how to teach a grieving child. The grieving process doesn’t always happen in that order, yet it is not difficult to identify where a child is in the stages of grieving. Knowing how to care for the heart – as you teach the mind – could help our children learn that love will take them through the process toward acceptance and growth. As we teach our children that we care we may also be creating a society that understands that caring is a better solution when they are adults which is more effective than labels and criticism.
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Perpetuation of the underachiever
October 02, 2007 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I brought
my son, to see you earlier this year and you
guided me away from an enormous public school
known as the best in the city to a smaller middle
school I would have never thought of. He was not
a high achiever but I thought that a school with
an extraordinary reputation would know how to
work with my underachiever.
Jalen began school last Monday and to our surprise he took to the program like a duck takes to water. He wears his dress shirt, pants, and tie with no complaints and he actually leaves school looking the same way he arrived – neat and clean. As for schoolwork, he created his own homework schedule (just as you taught him) and sticks to it. He begins his homework around 4 pm and moves through every subject without a concern for TV shows…even doing homework up to bedtime with no complaints. For years, my family and I had to prompt him to read his assigned books but even this changed. The English teacher assigned an outside reading assignment that requires him to read 20 minutes each day under parent supervision. Jalen immediately chose a book and now even reminds me when its time for me to listen. His confidence is up and he has even contemplated running for class president. WOW! Thank you for always believing there was a right place for my son. I must tell you…that when I heard say say, “I am so glad that I am at this school” I received confirmation that God does place us in situations for a reason. |
The Assessment: Your son had been in a big school al the way up through the sixth grade. Yet the day I met him one thing was obvious above all. His strength was his incredible desire to learn, his extraordinary embarrassment when he did not know how to carry out a task, and once convinced that he could ask questions without retaliation, smiled and asked at every point he truly did not know what a sixth grader should know. This child was not underachieving. The school was undermining his curiosity and desire to be as successful as any one else. Yet how can teachers in this country be expected to prepare and teach four, five six and even seven subjects with 20 to 28 or more students in their class. First of all some of these teachers have no previous preparation for and worse yet never were interested in every one of these subjects. They never experienced the passion for some of the subjects they are told to teach our young children.
This child was not an underachiever. He was scared. He had learned that all too often, given the pressure his teacher(s) were feeling, not only teaching the children but doing all the paper work the educational throws at them to prove that they taught the children that he would get responses such as:
“You would know the answer if you were paying attention.”
“You should know that by now, so look it up.”
“I said it once and I am not repeating it.”
“Look it up in your book and if you still don’t understand it do it for homework.”
“Did you even try.”
“I told everyone to work quietly and that includes you.”
“If you don’t know it go to the next one.”
Slowly but surely, this child learned the lesson he least needed. Asking to learn is a sure way to humiliation.
What To Do: This message is not intended to offend a system of teachers with a union that allows the school system to arrive at ridiculous numbers of students in their classes. It is not intended for those who do try to answer the questions children ask, yet are unable to do so because the same unions allow politicians to allow certification experts to tell teachers how much they have to cover rather than how much a child has to learn. This article is intended for teachers caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. The ones that went to college to be the educators of the next generation and instead have been forced to be the rote followers of curriculums written by textbook companies that have no regulations in this country and require no certification. Whatever they put into a book and whatever grade they put into it, once picked by a school becomes a bible no teacher in this country ever thought would be considered more important than their own originality and love for their subject matter.
Parents must talk with their children and more than anything believe them. This child had said he was afraid to ask questions yet instead of solving the problem by having him write on his paper what he did not understand so when it was graded the teacher could see if it was only he or many students feeling lost, his mother was told to have him tested for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Desperate the mother followed the instruction. Why would he not be considered on a test he did not need to be lacking attention when instead he was an expert at being fearful of a question and even more so of being wrong if he answered one.
Today he is in a school that was told prior to registration that this child’s only problem was fear of asking a question. The school was advised to allow him to have a paper on his desk where he could write his questions and hand them in with his work. Slowly he realized he was getting answers, that he could learn and that the feeling of success was better than anything a TV program could ever do for him. What started out being described as child that did not care, resulted in being a case in which a child cared so much he preferred punishment to trying. When will politicians realize that it is textbook companies they need to go after and certifying experts that are certifying the page a teacher should be on and not the right to help children when they ask a question?
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Adjusting to a new school – and a new grading policy
August 14, 2007 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: This year my son is starting seventh grade. He has attended a small private school all his life, but because my husband was laid off at work this year, my son will go to a public school this fall. At the private school, all of the teachers followed the same grading policy. Students are graded for handing in their homework, not for accuracy. Because my son did his homework at school and turned it in on time, he received many 100’s for homework. With excellent homework grades, he made Bs on his report card even though his test grades were poor or terrible. To put it simply, my son learned how to play the game, but his “grade game” is about to change. Compounding the problem, the new school does not have an internet system that allows me see his grades each week. What should I do? Please help! |
The Assessment: Most likely your son’s new teachers will not have the same grading policies. In fact, except for the final grading scale set by the school system, most teachers develop their own way to grade.
Before you take action, realize that your son only “beat the game” because his school allowed the game to take place. Think of going to a casino where the slot machines hit the jackpot frequently. If you make enough money at the slot machines, you will be willing to play roulette. Even if you lose at roulette, you can offset your losses at the slot machines. When teachers give 100’s for turning in homework without regard to accuracy, it is equivalent to the false security of the slot machines. If your son is addicted to this system of winning, it will be difficult for him to realize the rules are about to change. Your child needs an education, and that requires knowing how to learn for the long-term.
What To Do: First, remain calm. Remember that the years leading up to high school are what I call “the rehearsal years.” These are the years that you and your child are given to learn the skills needed to be a successful learner.
Sit with your child and explain that learning to “play the game” in life is important. Use actual numbers to show your child that until now his grades have been inflated by the previous grading system. Then set up different ways that teachers could average his grades and show him the results. For example:
At his former school, he could have had 20 homework assignments in six weeks. That gives him 20 100’s. If his quiz average was 81, and his test average was 54, then his final average would be 78. At previous school, a 78 is a C, but at his new school that same grade is a D.
Now, let’s assume his new teachers grade homework. In one grading period, he has 20 assignments and an 80 homework average, an 81 quiz average and a 54 test average. His average is now a 71. Again this is a C at his previous school, but two points away from an F at his new school.
Begin the new school year by learning the rules of each teacher’s game and discussing them with your child. In every class, each grade should be written down, and once a week you and your child should discuss his progress.
Teach your child that he is control when he “plays the game” by knowing and following the rules. All new situations bring a new set of rules. This is not a lesson just about school – it is a lesson about life.
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Success in learning is keyed to long-term recall
April 26, 2007 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Whenever I
ask my daughter about her final exams, she says,
"Don’t worry – I have it under control." She
always feels like she is ready for exams. She
does OK on tests but final exams are often a
disaster.
The school has said she might have memory problems and that I should have her tested. But she can remember everything else – even things from when she was a baby. It doesn’t make sense. |
The Assessment: Learning for long-term recall requires more than just a good memory. It also requires learning with context and meaning for our lives. Think of the clues your daughter uses for her long-term memory. She might remember a trip to the zoo because her little sister got lost; she might remember a distant relative because of a different accent or funny expressions. When children recall seemingly minute details from early in their lives, invariable there is a special meaning to them.
Unfortunately, that is not how children learn in school. Children read information in books, take notes from lectures, and listen to facts in videos. Many children take this knowledge in the order it is given without knowing how to personalize it and make it meaningful in their lives. This type of recall with no personal attachment will work for little bits of information needed for tomorrow’s test. However, once students write the information on the test paper, they often place it out of their minds, and therefore lose the long-term attachment they need for final exams – and for life.
The children who do well on chapter tests but "freeze" on final exams might not have memory problems at all. These children do not fail exams because of a lack of ability to recall, but because of the quantity required for recall. In preparing for final exams, they must abandon their short-term recall techniques and learn the information all over again because the first time lacked any context or meaning.
What To Do: A parent’s job is not to teach schoolwork but to monitor. Monitoring means that you check to make sure your child is carrying out her responsibility as she should.
When your daughter says she has exams "under control," she believes that is an honest answer. But she loses control because she does not know how to learn differently than she did for the individual tests. No one has taught her techniques to help her take ownership of knowledge – that is, to take the dry facts from school and make them meaningful for her life. She simply falls back on short-term recall, waiting until the week before finals to begin to memorize instead of starting sooner so she can learn.
Do not expect your child, on her own, to change study habits before finals. Outline a
new process with her to help with long-term recall. As you monitor, insist on seeing her efforts.
Get your child a calendar for May and have her prepare a Ready-For-Exams Program. Insist on having the plan completed before taking action. Have your child decide and record the following:
The dates and times for each exam.
A date to ask each teacher what material will be covered and what format will be used for the exam. (Your child must show you a written list and should keep the information for reference.)
A date to show you all notes, old tests, quizzes and other materials needed to study for each exam. (You might want your child to set up file folders for each subject to keep the material handy for review.)
A date to have a mock exam ready for each subject. (This puts your child truly in control of the exams by personalizing use of the knowledge she must learn.)
A date to show the mock exams to each teacher and ask them to make sure the questions are on target. Have each teacher initial these mock exams.
A date to take each mock exam and correct it from notes.
Time to learn what she missed on the mock exams. She should plan to complete learning two days before each exam. She can only review material the night before each exam.
A date to celebrate the end of exams and to do – not buy – something special with the family.
Each time we ask our children, "are you ready for exams?" we assume they know how to analyze the task ahead. It is in this assumption that many children find failure for lack of being taught the life skill of planning.
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Childhood and its many definitions
April 19, 2007 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I am
retired, but keep on the volunteer list at our
local school board. I am keenly interested in
education, and have to say that it is hard to
ignore the problems in our country in the
education sector.
One thing that has always bothered me is the increasing tendency to refer to a child or children as "kid" or "kids." I grew up on a farm and we had many kids in the pasture...please help us get on the right track. |
The Assessment: Seeking an umbrella term for children of all ages, I acknowledge using the word "kid" to excess.
It is easy to use a word that has an immediate identity ranging from a tiny preschooler to a strapping high-school athlete.
I do not believe we can get on the right track with our terminology until we answer one basic question: What do we mean by the term, "childhood?"
Our country has become ambivalent about childhood, as if no one knows who a child is anymore.
I am amazed at how many daughters dress like their mothers and how many boys look as if they were interns at their fathers’ law firms. On the other extreme, some girls dress as if they have forgotten to take off their pajamas, and boys are cloaked like tramps.
I have come to realize that children in the second group are being given the "opportunity" to assert their "individuality" with the freedom to "express their inner selves."
Either way, through rigid dress code or experimentation, children are allowed to experience the freedom of adulthood without the responsibility that goes with such freedom.
And there are other signals. I remember calling one school to inquire about placement for a child and asking about any special difficulties the administration had witnessed among the students.
"Only with dating," I was told. "When some of the girls don’t get asked out, they get hurt."
Quickly apologizing for not making myself clear, I specified that I was talking about a fourth-grader. So was the school representative!
While speaking to parents at a local high school years ago, I introduced a concept I call the "Swiss Cheese Kid."
During the question and answer period that followed, a father asked me, "Why do you use the term ‘kid’?" My answer: "If I referred to your high-school son or daughter as a child, you might not think I was talking to you."
Unfortunately, I have adopted the use of the term "kid" because too many adults today refuse to see children as children – and I use that term to include preschools through older teens.
Many adults have bought into the notion that our little ones must be treated as if they were older, and our older ones must be given privileges without responsibility as if they were younger.
What To Do: As a society, we must decide who are the children – and who are the parents. When a father of a third-grader asks me, "Just when will he take full responsibility for himself?" I always answer, "When he pays his own rent!"
It is the parents’ role to give each child guidance, and to give each child a childhood.
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Dealing with deficiency notices
March 15, 2007 12:00 PM
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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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Student needs knowledge and responsibility
February 22, 2007 12:00 PM
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Our
eighth-grade son is in gifted classes and is an
avid reader, mostly cheerful, and has a wonderful
self-esteem, for which we are truly thankful.
As far as school work, however, he is not self-motivated. Since he was in fourth grade, I have spent a lot of time making sure he does his work, helping him through it, showing him how to study, quizzing him for tests, helping with time management for special projects, and the list goes on and on. When I do all these things, he gets As and Bs – sometimes straight As. If I don’t, he is a B-C student. I know he is capable of doing it on his own; the problem is he just does not want to, and is satisfied with average work. My question is, how involved should parents be in school work of children who are not motivated to do their best? |
The Assessment: Schooling has many important goals, but its primary function is to teach basic knowledge, to develop responsibility for learning independently and with accountability, and to encourage each student to process knowledge with independent thinking, learning and creativity. This is a tall order, but our schools work on each of these primary areas over time.
In the early grades, the emphasis is on basic skills. Bright children with dedicated parents, like your son, usually have a “pre-learning advantage,” with educational toys, computer programs and TV shows that teach colors, numbers and the alphabet long before the child even enters preschool. What I call the “Fisher Price Generation” usually breezes through the first three grades, often experiencing success without challenge.
In many school systems today, the fourth grade has become the time when independence in learning is suddenly expected to be in place. For most children this independence remains a skill that is still in need of development.
This often is the time when dedicated parents step in to help. Unfortunately, this separates two learning tasks that should be developed simultaneously by the child. Learning is delegated to the child and responsibility to the parent.
As students continue into middle school and high school, the educational demands increase. Instead of just memorizing basic skills, they must learn to process knowledge and contribute their own analysis and insight. A student who has not become responsible for independent learning is soon at a disadvantage in school, and is destined to be at a disadvantage in a collaborative workforce.
To succeed in school and in life, a student needs both basic knowledge and work ethic of responsibility that will allow him, as an adult, to join with others in using his knowledge.
What To Do: For the past five years, your son has learned that he does not have to be concerned with responsibility, because you have taken on that role. You must give responsibility back to him with equal commitment and diligence over time.
Select a course that your son enjoys, and outline the responsibilities he must take on to be independently successful. Be specific about the requirements. How will he take on responsibility for turning in his homework on time, handling short-term and long-term assignments, and preparing for tests and quizzes?
Have your son put this list in writing, creating a list of commitments to himself. If he fails to meet these commitments, he won’t be failing you or his teachers, but himself.
Slowly determine what items on the list you will no longer assist in, other than just lending support or answering appropriate questions. Do not take responsibilities back once you have let them go. Make sure that each item is small enough that your son can do it successfully. As your son begins to experience independent success, gradually increase his responsibility for other courses.
For a dedicated parent, letting go will be as difficult for you as grasping responsibility is for your son. Talk about this so that from the beginning you can understand each other’s pain. Remember that the goal is well worth it: Having a child who can become an independent, lifelong learner.
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