#BTColumn – Why parents are not coping as teachers

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Julia Hanschell

Home structure, created and guided by parents, has replaced the daily routine of school, supervised by teachers. Parents are now experiencing the inestimable value of teachers in the classroom and their presence at recess, to monitor student behaviour.

Children MUST BE MANAGED if they are to learn. Adults know the extended hours they now find themselves working remotely at their jobs. Many find their work is compounded by the broken concentration required of them to oversee their children attending classes online and completing work independently and efficiently.

Parenting has become a whole lot harder. The question that must be asked is ‘Why’? Because this should not be so. Our school system has been focused on education in entirely the wrong way for many decades.

Instead of learning being student-driven, with an emphasis on independent research, synthesis, analysis, collaboration and building effective communication skills, it has focused on the implanting of information by the teacher and the remembering and regurgitation of facts by the student.

Any parent who has sat with their child to try to assist them in completing their SBA (now in every CSEC subject), will tell you unequivocally that it is torture.

Students do not have the foundational skills with which to independently manage their learning. The universal words parents and teachers hear are, ‘I don’t understand.’ We listen dumbfounded and cannot imagine why.

So, let’s examine the price of progress. We had no technology at our fingertips, so we had to read and make notes. The salient, summarized kind. There were no opportunities to copy and paste, so plagiarism was incredibly inconvenient.

There was discussion in class but minimal notes provided; certainly no photocopies. So we had to pay attention and participate. We asked questions and listened carefully to others when they asked theirs.

Then we used our breaks to collaborate with our classmates to go over the content from class and we used our textbooks (also antiquated) to carefully select the details beyond what was discussed. When we did not understand something in its complexity or totality, we figured it out or asked friends for help. We practised without distraction.

We poured over our tests to figure out what we did wrong, so that we never made those mistakes again. Extra lessons were practically unheard of, unless you had considerable difficulty in a subject.

Let’s not even discuss classroom management, respect and the parent-teacher relationship. That is a topic for another day. Let’s just look at how students learn and why this is not working. And for that I’ll give an example that has resonated with me for almost two decades.

I was helping a private school, Form 3 student prepare for end of year exams. According to her mother, she was ‘a deer caught in headlights’. We started with Geography: Tropical Rainforests, their climate, weather, flora and fauna.

The student had magnificent notes and beautifully drawn illustrations for which the teacher had awarded her 10/10. The most important facts had been underlined neatly with a red pen. Every conceivable point was there.

So, I began by asking the ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ questions. The answers were spat out by memory. I then asked her, ‘How has the fauna of the rainforest adapted to its climate?’ The answer was not stated in the notes; it required synthesis and analysis of the information.

This is the higher order thinking that CXC exams test. I was told, ‘The test won’t have that on it; I only need to learn what I underlined in red.’ I replied, ‘Well, CXC will ask you this so you need to learn how to take the information
and use it.’

The student simply could not THINK and she was adamant that she only needed help to remember so that she would pass the exam.

When I persisted, I was told, ‘I don’t understand what you want.’ So, I had to teach her how to link information, to draw conclusions and to answer specifically what was asked.

That was fifteen years ago and since then, curriculum has been expanded and CSEC multiple choice questions have become more complex and the long answer paper requires strong application and expression of knowledge.

Few students have the pre-requisite skills to make their SBA a meaningful learning experience. The fact is, that the SBA is the most valuable learning tool and one which truly prepares students for the working world, in so many aspects.

So today, learning has deteriorated to the point where many students are drowning in their inadequacy. They have no study skills worth noting and parents are asking teachers to teach their children how to study, as well as what to learn.

I am not optimistic. There seems little indication that education is adapting to the demands of the real world.

Consequently, I cannot offer any comfort to fraught parents trying to assist their children at home, other than advise them to find a school that teaches in an alternative way.

Ponder on this truth: “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.”

Julia Hanschell can be contacted on smartstudying @gmail.com.