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A school community is composed of three parts: the students, the parents, and the staff (teachers and administrators). In a dysfunctional school community, no one trusts each other. This means the parents don’t believe the teachers are capable, the teachers don’t trust that the parents or students are capable, and the school leaders do not believe the teachers or parents are capable. Everybody has a lack of capacity in a dysfunctional school community.
Continue reading “What are the roles of school leaders, teachers, and parents in the child’s education?”Tag: Dr. Shimon Waronker
How Do We Define Success in the Classroom?
Children and adults define success in school differently. For a child, success is measured by whether they have friends, whether they are doing well academically, and how they are perceived by their peers. The class clown will feel success every time he cracks a joke in a class and the entire room bursts into laughter. Of course, the teacher won’t think that was a successful lesson, but the child will feel success.
To ensure both children and parents are using the same definition of success, parents need to be explicit when describing success for their children. When parents sit down with their children, they need to review the expectations they have and be clear about the ways they will measure success. Clear expectations about good behavior and academic achievement should be explained. If parents do not provide these explicit expectations, they should not expect the children to know how success is defined. It is also important to have conversations with the children throughout the year to measure success based on those expectations.
Continue reading “How Do We Define Success in the Classroom?”How Do I Deal With Difficult Parents?
At some point in a school year, a teacher will encounter a difficult parent. A difficult parent is someone who doesn’t believe or trust the teacher and blames the school for any problem their child is having. These parents believe their child is perfect even though the child might be failing academically or having real challenges with behavior.
How can teachers approach parents like this? Shimon Waronker, EdD, experienced a situation in which a team of teachers was having difficulty communicating with a particular parent whose child was troubled, both academically and behaviorally, and the parent maintained that the situation was all the teachers’ faults. The parent truly believed the teachers were ganging up on her blameless child.
Continue reading “How Do I Deal With Difficult Parents?”Should I Refuse to Let the School Evaluate My Child
One of the most challenging situation parents can find themselves in is when the school principal or teacher believes their child has a learning disability and perhaps requires special education intervention. Unfortunately, a learning disability is seen as a stigma by many parents and their response is predictably, “No, my child is normal. My child does not have special needs. How dare you say something like that about my child?!” The reality, however, is that each child is different; each child has his or her own special needs.
A child can be gifted but still require special education services. Each child needs to be able to have his or her needs met, and different learners learn at different paces and have different abilities. Parents need to remain open to the fact that the feedback from the school is likely correct. Maybe the child does need help, and parents need to consider how they will avail themselves of the resources that are out there to help their child.
Continue reading “Should I Refuse to Let the School Evaluate My Child”What is the Best Way to Educate My Child?
There are many opinions as to what education really is. If you ask ten different people, you will might get ten different answers. Shimon Waronker, EdD, believes an education is primarily the development of character traits in a child.
If children are resilient, courageous, humble, and empathetic, then a parent has succeeded because no matter what challenge is thrown at them, they will have the tools they need to meet that challenge and overcome it. Character traits are critical in education and are really primary to academics. A lot of people will say, “What do you mean? Education is all about the academics!” But in truth, academics are secondary to the development of positive traits because a child with no resilience will give up and quit, and it makes no difference what challenging course material they receive—they will always have a propensity to quit.
Continue reading “What is the Best Way to Educate My Child?”