34 - Wednesday. October 7, 1998 — North Shore News

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PEPARENTAL GUIDANCE

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Teach your children well

AS an educator who has taught in the pubiic school system, the private school systein, and last _ year home-schooled my own children, I have come ™ to some very clear conclusions about the difference between education and schooling.

Vhere are certain roles parents and schouls need to take ifa child is going te achieve that idealistic goal of “maximizing their potential” Einstein once stated that cdu- cation was the sum of what vou knew after vau forget every thing that vou learned in schon at. He was negatively biased of course, having been both a genius and dyslexic, thus driving his teachers crazy while not conforming to the xxill requirements they imposed.

For Einstein, and for maay others not quite as intellectually gifted, there is a gem of truth in what he said. How many of us really remember what we studied in Grade 5 social studies?

Education takes know ledge, skills and atutudes and places them inte a contest. In other words, the sum of everything we know, can do, and wish to do, is our education. We accumulate these factors trom many sources, but during childhood, primari-

Wy tram our homes.

Unquestionably, the most significant cducators our children will ever have is us, their parents, and we need to recognize, trom day one, the importance of our role ay the primary inthe ence on their future.

Everything we say and do with our children is 2 reflection of the knowledge, skills and attitudes we wish them to have. ‘They will learn both from the things we do, and perhaps just as strongly, trom the things we don't do.

If mom and dad watch television and never read, how likely is it that the children will take to voracious reading in their spare time? Conversely, if the television is limited tits use, and the family engages in reading and discussion of reading materi- als, how likely i is it that the child will appreciate the medium and develop the skill?

Schooling, on the other hand, is the time that a child spends in formal, government-ordained instruction.

Although reading educational curriculum might isad a par- ent to think that schools are in the business of a complete edu- cation, keep in mind that children have a limited exposure to school personnel (five hours a day for 185 days a year), but edu- cation happens 24 hours a day for 365 days a year. Schools are only capable of doing so much in the limited time they have.

~ Essentially, schools provide a progressive sequence of skills, from the reading and writing of the primary grades, to the development of study skills in the junior grades, and the pro- cessing of cause and effect relationships in the high school.

Specific knowledge, that is, hard-nosed faetual material, is not that important until the final three years of high school, when career directions become more focussed.

Up to that time, knowledge is just a vehicle used te practise skills, and curriculum is designed to give students a very broad range of knowledge without too much depth.

if your children take a serious interest in any one branch of knowledge before Grade 10, they will generally find, unless their teacher happens to share the same keen interest, they will readily surpass the knowledge of that teacher and their peers.

This is why parents need to encourage and support their children in the interests they show. Schools simply cannot do this in classes of 25 or more, when the emphasis is on skills, not knowledge, and where specialization i is discouraged until experi- ence and exposure has shown a wider range of options.

Grabam Hookey is the author of Parenting Is A Teans Sport and teaches parenting courses, (209-8784 ar ghookey@dowco.com)

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