The Best Thing You Can Do to Help Your Child Succeed at School

Every good parent wonders how they can best help their child achieve at school. Obviously, we can ensure our child is attending a first-rate school that provides excellent teachers. That’s not always possible, and even if we do manage it, the school and the teacher are only one part of the story. How can we as parents do our bit at home? What is the best thing you can do to help your child succeed at school?

The number one thing you can do at home is provide a knowledge-rich environment. Talk to your children. Have dinner together and let them hear you use ‘big words’ as you talk with your wife. Read aloud to them. Seems simple right? Yet so many children are short-changed in this area. It is more common for ‘families’ to eat dinner separately staring at screens, and few children are read to past their toddler years, but this has educational ramifications.

Really? Yes, really. The number one reason children from lower socio-economic homes fare worse in school is because they lack the vocabulary and knowledge that children from more wealthy homes have. These children go to school with a vocabulary that is hundreds and sometimes thousands of words fewer than children from more wealthy families. This gap tends to widen over time in the wrong sorts of schools. Since vocabulary size is the most important indicator of reading ability and comprehension, these children will find it more difficult to pick up knowledge at school. But let’s not just assume this is a problem for children from poorer homes. More and more busy two-parent working families are spending less time with each other.

I believe that providing knowledge is so important to success, that if you read to your children for an hour a day, taught and encouraged them to read every day for a few hours (ensuring the quality of books being read), provided them with basic numeracy skills while avoiding unnecessary screen time throughout the first six years of school, your child could miss school entirely, and enter the intermediate years in no way lacking. If you are not well educated yourself, become acquainted with your local library, and assign your child reading tasks every week. This is essentially what neurosurgeon Dr Ben Carson’s mother did, despite being unable to read herself. He links his future success as a neuro-surgeon to his mother’s strict reading regime of two books per week.

Fleeing a Sinking Ship

As mentioned in previous posts, I have some knowledge of a small independent school in New Zealand. Situated in a low socioeconomic area of the country, you would naturally assume it would struggle to attract students. Not so. It has waiting lists at almost all levels. Despite local state schools having millions of dollars thrown at them in building upgrades, parents are desperate to move their children into this small independent school. Unfortunately, the school is at capacity in most year levels, and has to turn away many of those who apply.

So what’s going on in these other schools? There are of course multiple factors. One is discipline. Some schools seem reluctant or unable to deal with difficult students. In one of the local schools, teachers are instructed to leave the classroom with the rest of the class when a student ‘loses it’ and begins destroying things. Independent schools tend to have more ability to deal with discipline issues because a contract exists between parents and the school. Truculent students can be dealt with effectively by putting the onus back where it belongs – with the parents.

A second issue is of course the academic side of things. Unfortunately, the New Zealand curriculum is content-light and this is supposedly one of its benefits. Children will be able to learn skills in a way that caters to the interests and knowledge of their local community. This sounds very nice in theory, and in higher decile communities it has less of a negative impact than in lower decile communities. In lower socio-economic areas this ‘skills-based’ local knowledge approach tends to leave children from knowledge poor communities trapped. They are not provided with the knowledge that will help them succeed in society.

On a related note, there are low-expectations. Students applying to enter this independent school must sit placement tests, and the results of most children who apply from the local schools are depressing. Children can get through intermediate without knowing virtually anything about fractions or even basic numerical skills. In English, many students are unaware of basic conventions such as capitalization and punctuation. They write as they would text. Speaking of texting, these children often have atrocious handwriting because they have done most of their ‘learning’ on devices.

Unfortunately, for some children, they will never make up the lost ground. Those who spend their primary years in these state-run institutions may be doomed academically. High school teachers cannot be expected to teach cognitively challenging concepts in preparation for the rigours of university to children who are innumerate and illiterate. It is not fair or realistic.

So my advice to you if you are living in a low-socio economic area is to look very carefully at your options. If you want your children to succeed in the world, you might want to look at other options. If you are relatively well-educated yourself, you might consider home-schooling. If you are not, you might consider doing everything you can to get your child into a school that focusses on giving your child a knowledge-rich education. If you cannot afford to do that, the next best thing is to join your local library, and get your child reading widely. If your local school is focussing on things like environmental issues or cultural groups, realise that as nice as these things might be, if they are taking time away from attaining knowledge, your child is being cheated out of an education that could raise his sites, his future prospects, his future earning potential, and his future living standards.

Discussion Paper – Coronavirus Implications

A discussion paper, released some weeks ago by think-tank Koi Tū: Centre for Informed Futures was highlighted in an article on the Stuff website. Of particular interest to me was the section on education.

The report muses about implications for education:-

Does the pandemic change thinking around primary and secondary education? Will this experience irreversibly change the nature of learning – changes that were likely inevitable in future decades? There are opportunities here to shift more to teaching skills such as critical thinking and emotional self-regulation, move towards precision education and create leadership and export opportunities. Schools need to focus on transportable and generic skills so that pupils can later navigate a more fluid labour market. Is there a place for technology teaching streams as in Germany and Switzerland? Could this be a circuit breaker that allows for a substantial change in pedagogy?

A couple of comments.

Firstly, we should always be wary of the impulse to assume that an event will irreversibly change anything. Yes, events do have an impact on history and can cause change. But there are a number of fundamental things that never change. The nature of humans for instance. And because the nature of humans is immutable, the nature of learning is not likely to be something that changes. If our brains function in much the same way as they always have, any one event is not going to significantly alter the way humans learn.

This criticism applies to the common misconception that the 21st century changes everything. It doesn’t.

Secondly, the report suggests that we should focus on teaching skills that enable students to navigate a more fluid labour market. In recent posts, we have shown that this is a myth based on a misunderstanding of what skill is. What schools need to do, is provide students with a knowledge-rich education. This is a fundamental building block for skill.

Unfortunately, these two myths, that one event or time period changes learning completely, and that our modern world requires the teaching of skills are widely believed and foisted upon the educational landscape. But they are having an unfortunate effect on our young people. If you are a parent, I encourage you to look for a school that does not buy into these myths. Give your children the gift of a content-rich education. Skill and ability to navigate an ever-changing world will follow.

Seven Myths About Education – Part 7

Over the last month or so we have been slowly reviewing Daisy Christodoulou’s Seven Myths About Education. A note that has sounded time and again is the importance of knowledge. We see this again today as we investigate the final myth she highlights: that teaching knowledge is indoctrination.

Teaching Knowledge is Indoctrination?

This myth seems to arise from postmodernism. In the 1960s and 1970s, a number  of theorists claimed that what we often think of as objective facts cannot be agreed to exist. Rather, they argued, we construct reality as societies and cultures. These ‘realities’ are buttressed by institutional power, which preserves these facts. Thus, according to these theorists, teaching knowledge is not neutral, but can be a form of oppression by those who hold societal power, and therefore undemocratic. These theorists argue that the traditional curriculum “reproduces hegemonic values and therefore reproduces social and class inequalities.” Therefore, this approach should be abandoned.

So the response of some educational theorists is to avoid the imposition of external content on pupils, and instead work with the knowledge and experiences that they already have. We see this all over the educational landscape today. One example from recent times is a New Zealand educational leader suggesting a boy in the deep south of our country is better off knowing about muttonbirds than how many continents we have. Indeed, our New Zealand Curriculum is deliberately broad and eschews set knowledge so local communities can ensure their particular needs are addressed and themes relevant to students’ experience can be explored.

Why is this a myth?

So what is wrong with this? Surely Christodoulou is not supporting inequality and oppression? Of course not, but she points out that if we are concerned about democracy and equality, we should be concerned about the teaching of knowledge in schools. If we do not provide a knowledge-rich education in schools we will further exacerbate the undemocratic and unequal features of our society. Why? By only teaching pupils using the knowledge they bring to the classroom, and focussing on their experiences, we automatically disadvantage those who bring less to the classroom. These are the children of those who are not highly educated themselves.

In fact, a good democracy requires that every citizen “have knowledge and understanding of the world beyond their immediate experience, equality requires that there should be no great gaps in the understanding between people or social classes.” Teaching knowledge is not elitist. It’s not classist, and it’s not racist. As Robert Tressel (a trade unionist) said, “What we call civilisation – the accumulation of knowledge…is the fruit of thousands of years of human thought and toil…not the result of the labour of the ancestors of any separate class of people…and therefore it is by right the common heritage of all.” So let’s not leave any child to their own limited local knowledge and experience. Let’s give them the gift of this heritage.

Continents or Muttonbirds?

In response to a recent study conducted by The New Zealand Initiative highlighting a possible knowledge deficit in New Zealand education, NZ Principals Federation president Whetu Cormick responded in the New Zealand Herald saying:

“For a child in Bluff who might be interested in muttonbirds, they are not going to be interested in the fact that there are seven continents in the world,”

“We need to continue to develop a curriculum that is relevant to the community and in partnership with the community.”

A press release from The New Zealand Initiative suggests these comments reveal a particular weakness in New Zealand education.

The New Zealand Initiative and Whetu Cormick represent two opposite ends of a spectrum in education on the role of knowledge. Is there a set body of knowledge children should be given? What should be the role of knowledge in education? To answer these questions is complex and much depends on personal worldview and one’s perspective of the purpose of education.

The New Zealand Curriculum

For those of you who are not clear on education talk, ‘curriculum’ is simply Latin for ‘course of study’. So what position does our New Zealand Curriculum take on the role of knowledge?

The current New Zealand Curriculum is very open-ended. To give you an idea of what this looks like, consider Mathematics, which in the New Zealand Curriculum is one of the more prescriptive subjects. For level 3, which equates to roughly two years of school (Year 5 & 6), there are 17 main achievement objectives. By way of contrast, the Stage 5 (just one year of school equivalent to NZ Year 5) Cambridge Primary Mathematics syllabus contains 98 learning objectives. It’s fair to say then that our New Zealand Curriculum rejects the older traditional knowledge-rich approach for what could be described as a ‘skills’ or ‘outcomes-based’ approach.

Potential Benefits

One of the main benefits of this approach is the ability of teachers and schools to have the freedom to decide how best to educate the children in response to the needs of their community. Not every community is the same, and a one-size-fits-all model of education is not going to suit every community, let alone every individual child. I think many parents desire that their children learn in a way that reflects their concerns and worldview. Having a government decide what every child should learn about every subject does sound rather Orwellian.

Potential Dangers

Nevertheless, there are a number of dangers inherent in such an open-ended curriculum.

Firstly, it ignores the truth that there is a body of knowledge that our children need to grasp to lead successful and useful lives. One classic example of this is in reading comprehension. More competent readers are better, not because they have acquired superior skills in reading per se, but because they have a better knowledge-base that allows them to understand what they are reading. Another reason we need to have a common body of knowledge is that it facilitates communication in civil society. In communication with others, we assume certain things. Communication becomes difficult and more likely to lead to friction in society when different groups do not have a large shared body of knowledge.

Secondly, this approach is likely to lead to the entrenchment of inequality in society. In a world where we teach children what we deem is relevant to them, we are in danger of depriving them of the knowledge they need to make socio-economic gains. Teachers know that some children come to school with a knowledge deficit. Others have had privileges that come with more educated and wealthy parents. Schools can have a role in reducing this knowledge gap, but only if they are willing to see education as taking children outside of their known world and providing them with the proven riches of the great past civilizations, cultures and thinkers.

Education should be about breaking down barriers and giving children wings, not making assumptions about what they deserve to know. We should bring the best of the past to our children so they can enjoy these treasures that may be outside their community’s immediate knowledge.

Thirdly, an open-ended curriculum such as the New Zealand Curriculum actually requires a very knowledgeable and educated teaching profession who can make sound decisions regarding what needs to be taught. It is doubtful that this is the case. While few would doubt the enthusiasm and diligence of most teachers, given that the entry requirements for a primary teaching degree are some of the lowest in degree courses it seems unlikely that teaching is attracting our most knowledgeable and educated talent.

A fourth concern is that an open curriculum is likely to be hijacked by the issue du jour. This is in fact already happening. The school climate strikes in 2019 are symptomatic of this. Well-meaning and passionate children missed school to protest against climate change. It does seem that very little balance is being provided by schools and teachers on this issue, and our children are being used as pawns in a larger political game.

Faulty Assumptions

Finally, the move toward an outcomes-based model and away from a knowledge-rich curriculum seems to be built on a number of faulty presuppositions. The first is that knowledge itself is unimportant. One does not need to read too widely to find educators arguing that knowledge is irrelevant in the age of Google, “because you can just look it up”. While this might seem a fair enough comment for an adult who has a relatively solid basic grid of knowledge from which to draw, for a child, it is often the case that they will not know the questions to ask. They don’t know what they don’t know! To become a skilled expert in any field, a comprehensive knowledge of your subject (and of course application of this) is always going to be a requirement.

A second faulty assumption is that education should follow the interests of the child. In the Herald article mentioned at the outset, Whetu Cormick is reported as indicating that the curriculum was right to let teachers choose topics that interest their students, because students could always find out other facts on the internet. But perhaps this thinking has things around the wrong way. Children will look up things in encyclopedias or get books out of the library or google them based on their interests at home. They will do this anyway. What they won’t naturally look up is what they may not yet be interested in or even know about. And some of this is the knowledge that a civil society requires adults to know for human flourishing.

A final faulty assumption is that there is no hierarchy in knowledge. Muttonbirds and continents. Are they are equally important? Does it just depend on what you are interested in? Perhaps we could think of knowledge as a jigsaw puzzle. When my children and I attempt a jigsaw puzzle, we always begin by putting the corner and edge pieces together. It would be very difficult to begin with picking a middle piece at random. Certain pieces of knowledge and indeed subjects are like the edge pieces of a jigsaw. They are essential if we are going to get our puzzle anywhere near completed. School, and particularly the primary years, should be about getting those edge pieces put together. This will help our children as they go through life and put in the pieces they are going to need in their particular calling.