Illustration by Danny Elchert
Education is more important today than ever before. Technological advances and international competition have increased what is needed to prepare students for a world in which the only constant will be change. As we expect more from our students, we also need more from their parents. The following 10 ideas, pulled from my 30 years of experience leading schools — currently as head of New City School in the Central West End — and from the suggestions of parents and fellow educators, can help improve students' performance in school and make life a lot easier for mom and dad.
1. The No. 1 job of parents is to be their children's advocates and to help them succeed.
Old news, right? Not necessarily. Too often parents assume that their job is to be a good parent and think that they should leave education to the educators (and sometimes educators endorse this view). In fact, parents need to advocate for their child throughout the educational process. That's true whether a student is 6 or 16. Sometimes this means pushing the school on a child's behalf, and sometimes it means pushing a child. It always means asking questions and getting involved. Squeaky wheels get greased more often. This starts with giving teachers the information that they need to begin the year in a positive way: What should teachers know about your child? What are your child's worries? What questions do you have? Parents should not wait for Back to School Night or the fall parent-teacher conference to be heard. They should contact their child's teacher within the first few weeks of school to let him or her know that they want to chat. Beginning the relationship by sharing information sets a positive tone for the year. As Matthew Gould, head of the Community School in Ladue, says, "It is important to establish a warm and open relationship with a child's teacher early in the year. This positive relationship will go a long way in helping children reach their full potential." Parents and teachers engage in a semester- or yearlong dance: It works best when each other's moves and feelings are taken into consideration.
2. Remember that teachers and principals are all human, too.
They have good days and bad days, and they are always supposed to smile. Even though a parent advocates for her Susie or Keith, she needs to remember that the teacher is also dealing with 25 or 30 or 150 other Susies and Keiths and their parents. And each of these children's parents knows that they're wonderful, too!
Teachers can and will make mistakes, but that doesn't mean that parents should be rude or overly aggressive. Parents have the right — the responsibility — to ask questions, but this needs to be done in a positive way. It doesn't do any good to win today's battle and lose the semester's war. Parents should think "golden rule" and find ways to let the teacher know that he or she is valued and appreciated. This consideration holds true for teachers and principals, too. Parents also have good and bad days, and teachers and principals need to remember this. Adhering to the "rule of six," making six positive comments for every negative one, is relevant in every relationship.
3. Children always tell the truth, except when they don't.
One of my favorite cartoons, from a magazine several years ago, depicts a teacher and a parent sitting at a desk, engaging in a parent-teacher conference. "I have an offer for you," says the teacher. "I won't believe everything that Johnny says happens at home if you won't believe everything that he says happens at school." That's good advice for both parents and teachers. Parents should listen to their children, but what they hear should be a starting point for dialogue with their child's teacher, not an ending point for a judgment.
If a student is feeling bored or frustrated or unwelcome, that calls for a discussion with the teacher: "Can you help me understand why Lisa is feeling anxious about school?" or "Bruce tells me that the math is too easy. Can this be the case?" The teacher may have a different perception, and reality is probably somewhere in the middle. Talking candidly about these perceptions is the first step in developing strategies to proceed. If a child is age 7 or older, it can be good to involve her in these discussions, too. Educators don't like to give hard messages, so when they share a concern, parents need to listen carefully and act appropriately. Deborah Holmes, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in the Kirkwood School District, offers this advice as well: "Sometimes it helps to get a third party involved, and pediatricians or child psychologists are often good resources."
4. Parents should ask and ask again. And ask once more.
It's important for parents to know what is happening at school, yet often students aren't the best or most vocal reporters. "How was your day?" may not generate more than a grunt or a one-word answer. (Often boys seem to be much less likely to share than girls. This changes, I'm told, at about age 64.) Instead, parents should ask questions that don't yield a yes/no response: "What was the best thing that happened today? What did you learn in history class that surprised you? What did you do that was hard?" Sometimes it's helpful to ask children about their friends' reactions: "What did Juan think? How did Caprice act?" Children often find it easier to describe what their friends did than to share their own feelings, and hearing these accounts enables parents to make inferences about their children's activities.
Often the most interesting parent-child conversations take place when there's an absence of eye contact, such as while riding in a car or on a walk. Some parents tell me that they create these situations on a regular basis just so they can talk with their children and get to a deeper level than at the dinner table or in front of the TV. Jan Jacobi, head of middle school at MICDS, says, "The quality-time argument doesn't cut it. You have to be there for them. The best communication happens when you least expect it."
5. Praise hard work, not talent.
Children need praise, but it needs to be designed to lead to future success, not just to reward current achievements. It's natural to commend children for who they are today: "You're so smart!" "You are such a good artist!" "You're a great soccer player!" But praising by only citing present accomplishments gives the wrong message, even if Lucinda is smart and artistic and an athlete. When we applaud children only for today's successes, we may teach them to be afraid to fail, because maintaining their success becomes very important. Olivia is an excellent painter, but because she focuses on protecting this self-image, she is reluctant to work with clay or fabrics. Micah plays competitive soccer but shows no interest in joining the swim team or taking tennis lessons. These children have become focused on maintaining their success rather than taking risks and learning.
We should praise children for their accomplishments, for who they are, but we should also praise them for their effort, for what they do: "I like how hard you played!" "You kept trying and trying and trying." "Your approach was really creative." Children — and all of us, really — easily fall into what social psychologist Carol Dweck calls a "fixed mind-set" about intelligence. We think that it is finite, and preserving our image, both to ourselves and others, becomes paramount. In contrast, a "growth mind-set" says that what's most important is to keep learning, and that means trying new things and different skills and occasionally flopping. Rewarding a child for her effort and her achievements, not just focusing on present successes, helps support the growth mind-set that leads to greater success.
6. Children go to school, but the whole family is enrolled.
Certainly the focus of school is the student, but the whole family should learn. This is easier, of course, when children are younger. At the elementary grades we expect that parents are to be involved, and they want this, too. Often, though, as students get older, that gets more difficult. "Historically, the goal of most preteens is to keep parents in the dark about almost everything and create a 'divide and conquer' atmosphere between home and school," says Kelly Tyson, principal of the City Academy in North St. Louis. "However, this is the time when parental influence is crucial."
True, parental involvement changes as children get older, but all parents have the right and responsibility to know what is going on in school and to know how they can help. If a school doesn't offer easy access by publishing teachers' email addresses and home phone numbers, then parents should initiate the contact. Every teacher is pleased to hear something like "I'm Carolyn's mother, and I'd like to know a bit more about how she is doing in your class and what I can do to help her learn." Jim Ford, principal of St. Cecilia's School in South St. Louis, agrees that parents should frequently touch base and see how things are going. "The No. 1 indicator of how successful a child will be in school is parental involvement. Great schools have great parental involvement!"
If there's no place for parents to casually get together in a school, they should ask the principal to create one. New City School offers an area with a couch, easy chairs, free coffee and wireless Internet access. Parents are encouraged to come in the building, feel the tenor of the school and linger a bit. Even if they don't stay, the public invitation is an important one. A carpool line serves no one except the local gas station. Granted, the parents' presence in the building can be problematic when Mrs. Pita is eavesdropping on the third-grade classroom, but the payoff is worth it. A strong parent presence in the building increases parent ownership and comfort level. Sometimes the best way to help a child learn is for the parent to be the student and have the child become the teacher. Everyone learns in a good school.
7. Standardized tests are just the beginning.
Tests don't measure how hard a child tries, how resilient she is, whether he cares for others and many other behaviors that are terribly important in life. Andra Gwydir, principal of Wedgwood Elementary School in the Ferguson-Florissant School District, insists on a careful balance: "Test results are not the only criteria to determine the success of a child. The whole child is composed of academic, social and emotional development that needs to be nurtured and strengthened."
Too often educators view their role as helping students learn how to succeed in school, not helping them learn how to succeed in life. Success in school is important, but success in life requires different skills, which aren't captured by letter grades or numbers. I often say, "Who you are is more important than what you know." That's not to take anything away from knowing what and knowing how. Rather, it's to point out that the kind of person a child becomes is what matters most.
Parents should review grades and test results, but they shouldn't stop there. They should ask about other aspects of a child's growth, too: In what areas is she most motivated? Where does she lead and when does she follow? How confident is she and in what is she confident? How kind is she and when does she demonstrate that? It's essential that educators work to teach skills that are important in school and in life.
8. Don't let 'em off the hook because of your own difficulties.
Dr. Katie Plax, director of the Adolescent Center at the Washington University School of Medicine, says, "Setting expectations high has been proven to be an important variable in creating resilient young people, and the really good news is, it's something each of us as parents can foster for our kids." She's right, but sometimes when parents hear about their child's shortcomings, they are flooded with memories and empathy. "Apples don't fall far from trees," they think. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard that a teacher was talking about a student's difficulties and the parent responded, "Yeah, I had that problem, too." Occasionally in a parent-teacher conference, when the teacher is recounting Leo's difficulties, one spouse will look knowingly at the other with raised eyebrows. (And just as often, Leo Sr. will nod with a guilty look on his face.) It may seem logical for parents to apologize because they had that same problem 30 years ago (or still have it today!). However, sharing this with their child can create an easy excuse. When a parent says, "I couldn't understand math either" or "No one in our family is good at art," it can lower expectations and tell kids that they don't have to keep trying. Parents need to be empathetic, and children shouldn't think that mom and dad were perfect. That's different, though, from thinking it's acceptable to do poorly because it's a family tradition.
9. Making new mistakes is an important part of growth.
"Following the crowd only gets you everybody else's leftovers," says Alice Roach, principal of the St. Louis Public Schools' Carnahan High School of the Future. "Students should be encouraged to explore, to create and to dream big dreams." That attitude changes how we view mistakes. Students understand that it's not good to make mistakes. Their mistakes don't yield smiley faces or get posted on the classroom walls; indeed, sometimes their mistakes are sent home for parents' signatures! When students are smart, they know how to avoid situations in which they will fail. But we learn more from our failures than from our successes, so these students avoid situations in which they'll learn. Making old mistakes isn't very wise, but it's not good to be mistake-free either. The key is to make new mistakes, to reflect on what went wrong and to learn from the mistakes. Using the phrase "make new mistakes" is powerful because it enables students to take risks and learn when things don't go as expected.
10. Joyful learning is the goal.
At the preschool, elementary or secondary level, what students are really learning is how to learn. In addition to learning parts of speech and quadratic equations, students need to learn that learning can be fun. That doesn't mean that learning is always easy or enjoyable; that's not the case. Students need to learn to persevere, and they have to become knowledgeable about areas that don't interest them. They even need to learn to get along with Mrs. Grump or Mr. Frown, the teachers who annoy or bore them. But students should understand that learning can be joyful. To be successful in tomorrow's world, they will need to be lifelong learners, and engaging in joyful learning establishes the foundation for this to occur. Joyful learning won't happen by chance. Educators need to acknowledge and strive for it. An important part of a parent's role is to help his or her child see that learning is joyful.
