by L. A. Brown

Created on: June 02, 2009   Last Updated: June 03, 2009

I find that the level of expectation the school system has on young children has doubled since I was a child... and I struggled in my education back then. While we cram math, science and geography down their poor little throats like there's no tomorrow, what could we be forgetting? Many kids finish their school year not seeming to have absorbed much of what was presented to them during those 10 long months. I've muttered about this to my friends and family as I look over my son's school work and low test marks and have come to my own conclusions about what needs to be reinforced into these students just as much if not more than the multiplication tables.

PRIDE - Being able to read a book and write a report may seem great but if you can't read what they written, it doesn't hold the same merit. I remember spending classes writing the capital A and lower case A over and over again until I learned to stay within the lines. Neatness used to matter. Now it's one simple mark out of twenty. Teaching a child to take pride in their work and present a finished product that they cared to take the time and effort in creating will work wonders as they grow and their projects become more complex. If you teach a child early on to hurry up and finish and scribble a line over a mistake instead of erasing, you are telling them that what they are doing isn't important.

RESPECT - Yelling and goofing off in class should be an absolute no-no. I sympathize with the teachers who feel they have to tiptoe around their students for fear of being accused of being abusive but there has to be a middle ground where they can enforce this rule to the fullest. A desk and chair being kept outside the class where the disruptive student can sit and work alone on their assignment could boost the quality of learning that the other students can enjoy. Is it any wonder that so many kids seem to be diagnosed with learning disorders these days compared to the last couple of generations? How can anyone possibly pay attention when there are 30 other people screaming in your ear?

EFFICIENCY - Although I was never very good at math when I was young (or today for that matter), one of my favorite classroom activities was the Minute Madness. You were given a sheet of paper with many math problems on it. The teacher would set the timer and you had 60 seconds to answer as many as you could correctly. Sometimes I did well, other times not so much, but my brain was definitely learning how to think quickly and

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>