Helicopter Parents

If you’re involved in education, whether as a student or a teacher or a parent or an administrator, it can often seem that there are constant battles over assigning blame for poor performance. From the perspective of teachers, parental involvement can often feel like an attack. While having parents involved in their children’s education is not a bad thing, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

The parents who are constantly setting up meetings over every poor grade or who are sidestepping the teacher entirely to talk to an administrator (afraid perhaps that their child is not being given enough positive attention in a classroom setting) have earned themselves the term “helicopter parents”–parents who just can’t stop hovering and let their children learn responsibility and independence.

Helicopter parents are a nightmare for many teachers…but are they just trying to look out for their children? (Image Credit:http://www.google.com)

And to be honest, learning consequences and personal responsibility and taking steps into the world away from home is what school is really about. The material, while important, is often secondary to the life lessons that are taught every day in peer interaction and in the classroom. What do these helicopter parents teach their children, then? That they shouldn’t have to advocate for themselves? That when faced with an issue, instead of doing some self-reflection and trying to improve, you should confront the other party head-on?

There are absolutely times when parental involvement becomes necessary in a classroom setting. Sometimes there are real conflicts of personality between teachers and students, and if the student has already taken steps to attempt and rectify the situation, he or she may need an adult advocate to intervene. Asking your child’s teacher to meet and find out how your child’s performance can be improved is also a positive step.

So the point isn’t that you should never get involved in your child’s education, or that you should never meet with your child’s teacher, but that you need to change your expectations when you have those meetings. Don’t go in ready to fight, or ready to assign blame. Often, parents have only heard one side of the story. So your child is getting As in every course except for Biology, and he tells you that it’s because the teacher hates him. The Biology teacher might reveal to you that the issue is your child hasn’t been doing the online weekly quizzes. Easy fix. Your child starts doing the online quizzes, his grade improves.

What have your experiences been meeting with your children’s teachers? Are you a helicopter parent? Is the term as negative as I’ve interpreted it?

Young Ain’t Stupid

I’m by no means an expert in child-rearing, but I have read quite a few articles about baby talking to infants. Some people are vehemently opposed to anything that smacks of treating babies like, well, babies, while others find baby talk an innocent, enjoyable past time. Who can resist those chubby cheeks and the adoring noises that seem to greet “Hewwo dere my widdle pumpkin pie”? So maybe I’ve outed myself as a proponent of baby talk. However, once a child starts talking, I think the time to baby talk has passed.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Silly voices and saying nice things is always in style at any age, in my book. What I mean is that it’s time to stop trying to dumb the world down for our kids once they reach the age of verbal communication. Dumbing down doesn’t mean explaining things in a way that children can understand, it means that you don’t think a child is capable of understanding and so you dismiss the concept without a second thought.

Here’s a recent example from our family to help clarify. A few months ago, we went to a science exhibit about dinosaurs in Toronto. Our youngest, a 5-year-old bound for kindergarten, was pretty engaged in the exhibit, and we started playing a game where she had to identify whether a dinosaur was a meat-eating carnivore or a plant-eating herbivore, or if it was like humans and was an omnivore, who enjoyed both plants and meat. Rather than just saying “does it eat meat or plants or both”, we took the time to define carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. When she responded with “it eats meat” someone would reply, “so it’s a carnivore”.

That’s what education is all about, after all. It’s an ongoing explanation of things. Maybe our youngest still has a tough time remembering what these different terms mean, but we continue to bring them up in conversation and have her repeat the information back to us. So yesterday, in between eating squash and corn, when she informed us that T-rex ate meat, the entire table chorused back, “that means that T-rex is a carnivore,” it wasn’t a big surprise.

Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?

Mr. Rogers used to sing “who are the people in your neighborhood” before he would take you around his own fictional neighborhood.

Of course, this simple child’s song has a pretty serious message. Who are the people in your neighborhood? People tend to fall into ruts of repetitive actions. We go to the same grocery stores and the same post offices and the same restaurants, rarely deviating from what’s familiar. But this doesn’t mean that the people in these places are necessarily familiar to us. Whether you live in a big city or a small village, why not try to make an effort and get to know the people who are around you? It’s a great lesson for kids on the importance of making connections with community.

So how familiar are you with your neighborhood?

Guest Post: WALL-E

Source: http://iaretheshawna.blogspot.com/2012/08/movie-reviews-part-7.html

One of our tutors students wrote a movie review back in late July and we thought our readers might like to see the great job he did. Teddy Turecki certainly proves students can be excellent writers! Here is Mr. Turecki’s review and thoughts:

Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Up are all Disney-Pixar Animation Studios films that have shown the creativity and brilliance of, what is, in my opinion, to be the #1 movie production company in the history of cinema. Sadly, they’ve had a couple of recent flops like Cars 2 and Brave, but those pictures can be easily forgotten when you consider Pixar’s finest hour, WALL-E: A 2008 computer-animated science-fiction film about a lonely waste-managing robot on a deserted planet. The machine however, falls in love with another robot named EVE, who also has a programmed task and they both embark on an adventure to outer space that changes the destiny of robots and humans forever. The director, Andrew Stanton, has described the theme of this movie as irrational love defeats life’s programming. It can also be said that environmentalism is a strong theme and that everyone should take part in making Earth a cleaner place.

Humans, found aboard a spacecraft in the middle of the space vacuum are portrayed as lazy, abnormally-large consumers who devote most of their time to either eating, hanging around the metropolis-like halls (or ports, in relation to NASA), and buy whatever they please; expecting to be brought to a safe, conditioned planet unlike the one they ruined before. What they don’t realize is how wonderful the area around them is; they’re too busy taking more than what is needed and acting selfish. Their purpose on board is to do nothing relevant to anything.

When you lose connection to your planet by buying into distractions like large phenomenons (for example, Wall-Mart, Television, the Internet), you lose the ability to focus on healthy ideas like recycling, renewal, and reducing. This lifestyle may lead to global warming, piles of trash everywhere because the disposes are full, etc. This is very cruel to the ecosystem, the rest of the animal kingdom, and life itself.

The scientific advancements shown in this movie probably couldn’t have controlled all the trash that had destroyed the place humans had called home. If it were possible, it most likely would have prevented the ending scenes seen in the movie.

WALL-E might not be the most enjoyable Pixar film out there, but it’s probably the most thought-provoking. I recommend the movie very much. It won a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, and was nominated for five other Academy Awards as well.             EVAAAAAAAA…..     

Thank you Teddy!

Starting School off Right

A lot of people wait to find their child a tutor until after he or she has brought home the first report card, or until after the first major argument about homework happens. In the first case, your child has already suffered the detrimental effects of one bad quarter, and will potentially have an excess of pressure to perform well the next three quarters. In the second case, you’ve already made school a battleground issue in your home. Starting the year off with an academic support system already in place through the use of a tutor can help preempt both of these negative situations.

Tutors aren’t just for students who struggle in school. In fact, kids who do well in school often benefit significantly from having a tutor, especially when it comes to levels of academic engagement and enrichment. Tutors are incredibly flexible when it comes to meeting your needs. Whether it’s providing homework help or strategies for dealing with test anxieties or supplemental material for a student who already loves a subject, tutors become part of your child’s routine surprisingly quickly.

So it may seem early in the school year, but start thinking about a tutor now. If you live in the Western New York area, why not try a free in-home educational consultation? You can find out more at our website.

Lifelong Education

There are lots of cliches that try to convey the idea that if you want someone to do something, you should do it yourself first. Lead by example, as it were. We often tell the young people in our lives that learning is a life-long endeavor, but how often do we as parents, educators, older siblings, or other family members demonstrate this kind of behavior?

Adults don’t stop learning…but sometimes kids don’t realize it! (Image Credit:http://www3.springlakeparkschools.org/departments/communityeducation.asp)

I’m not suggesting that adults aren’t constantly in the process of learning new things. In fact, I’ve found that as an adult I’m more aware of the learning opportunities in my life than when I was a child. However, I don’t think that adults necessarily take the time to discuss the role learning plays in their lives as explicitly as they should.

So the next time you head to a work training or a new exercise class or even read a new book, talk to a child about it. The next time at the dinner table you ask your child how his or her day at school was, offer up your own answer in response. By making education a discussion where everyone participates in the exchange rather than a monologue where a child is forced to recite what he or she has learned, maybe we can make learning a more fully-integrated part of life.

Taking a Step Back

I promised my thesis supervisor a rough draft of my introduction tomorrow. I’ve spend the past few days doing my best to formulate that chapter. I’ve pushed through my insecurity and my strong desire to procrastinate with only minimal success. So, today I took a step back. Rather than trying to write, I went back to my research and organized. I planned what I was going to write.

And somehow, that took the pressure off actually writing.

But it also drained me of the ability to write a longer blog entry for today. And so, with little time to spare, here’s my blog entry for the day. And I hope that you, too, can see the wisdom in sometimes taking a step back and reassessing the direction you’re going when the path is impossible.

Accountability

“Dear. Dr. Thesis Supervisor,

Hey, it’s me. Um, so I’ve started working on my introduction, and I’m sending you this e-mail because I hope to have a rough (ROUGH) draft done on Friday, and I was hoping to e-mail it to you to get your feedback. Hope your summer is off to a good start!

Yours Truly,

Anxious Grad Student”

That’s a slightly-exaggerated, names-removed-to-protect-the-anxious-and-the-impressively-scholarly, e-mail I sent to my professor a little while ago. Nothing in it is a lie. After all, I have started my thesis introduction. At the moment, it looks more like Frankenstein on the slab than the well-polished introduction it needs to become, but ultimately I guess it’s a start. The problem is, I’m having trouble moving past the first four pages. I’ve done a lot of research over the past few weeks. I’ve read lots of books, started lots of outlines…but now it’s time to get the show on the road. It’s time to start writing.

However, my procrastination has proved to be a worthy foe this time. My procrastination has outwitted me in every way. I make myself leave my house and go to the library to get work done. “No problem,” my procrastination says. “We’ll just angle our computer screen away from the other desperate students in the library and play some Bubble Shooter. Just one more game of Tetris,” my procrastination whines when I seem to be in danger of getting work done. “I have to check my e-mail one more time!” it protests, when I turn off my wireless connection.

My procrastination has not responded to threats, logic, tears, bribery, or anything else I can think of. Hours in the library have been spent doing…nothing. Time spent at my desk at home has been spent doing…nothing. Sometimes, my procrastination even just sits in front of the open word document, “ThesisIntroDraft1,” and doesn’t bat an eye. Doing nothing would be preferable to my procrastination than just getting the work done.

So today, I pulled out the big guns. I e-mailed my thesis supervisor promising him ten pages by Friday. In some ways, this has already proven to be a severe move. I’m getting the feelings of anxiety that I used to suffer to frequently last semester again. However, my procrastination also seems to have taken notice. “A draft?” it screeched, fingers flying frantically over the keyboard as it played yet another round of Tetris. “How do you expect to get a DRAFT done in two days?”

But that’s just it. This is what we needed. Accountability. With long-term projects, accountability can be hard to find. If you don’t have someone looming over your shoulder with deadlines and consequences, procrastination is easy. However, sometimes you have to find ways to make your own accountability. Move up your own deadlines. If simply moving it up on your calendar isn’t enough, TELL the people you’re accountable to that it will be done by the earlier date. Intrinsic accountability is great for those who are really self-motivated, but for the rest of us external pressure is the best thing since sliced bread. So watch out, procrastination, we’ve got a draft due. In two days.

So I guess we have time for one more round of Tetris.

Happy (Belated) Mother’s Day

Parents in general play a huge role in education. From shuttling kids to practices, rehearsals, study sessions, libraries, and other educational activities to painstakingly editing essays and slogging through math problems, parents can be the difference for many children between success and failure. Of course, yesterday is set up to recognize the unique contributions of mothers to the parenting equation.

Support can go both ways when it comes to being a parent and child. (Image Credit:http://grovegals.blogspot.ca/2012_04_01_archive.html)

In my own education, my mom has played a major role. She has been my support system through nearly twenty years of schooling, the person who has pushed me to try new things and go outside my comfort zone, whether it was through studying abroad or going to school hundreds of miles away from home. That, to me, is what makes an outstanding mother: one who pushes you to try new things constantly. When I was in elementary school, my mom went back to school to get her nursing degree. I watched as she balanced being  a mother, having a job, and being a full-time student, and at the time I didn’t really understand the reality of what she was going through. Now, although I still can’t quite grasp the amount of willpower and difficulty involved with doing all those things at once, I have a better idea, and am incredibly grateful. Her strength taught me that I, too, could have strength. The way she valued education taught me to value education.

My mom and I haven’t always had the easiest relationship, and we certainly don’t always agree. In fact, this year has been one of our most difficult, as I struggled through the growing pains of early adulthood and independence and uncertainty and she responded with frustration and exasperation.

However, this year has also given us a lot of opportunities to bond. Whether it was through helping me to decorate my first apartment or reading The Hunger Games and then going to see the film, we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know each other as adults and developing a sort of friendship. So thank you, Mom, for all the ways you’ve influenced my life. Your constant support and love have given me the strength to grow-up in a way that I can be proud of.

What are you most thankful to your mom for?

Inclusivity, Diversity, and Sensitivity…Oh My!

One of the things that I’ve striven for while writing this blog is inclusivity. While my own experience as a privileged white woman has probably bled through in my writing, I have always attempted not to make universal statements or assumptions about the people reading this blog. One of the ways in which I thought I had been most successful in bringing in other identities and “voices” was through my picture choices. I didn’t just feature stock photos of white children and families. I didn’t just feature boys or girls. I was inclusive. I was diverse. I was sensitive.

Occasionally uncomfortable Google searches (such as Down's Syndrome student) lead to great images such as this one of a dance class. (Image Credit:http://articles.dailypilot.com/2011-03-28/news/tn-dpt-0327-down1-20110328_1_dance-lessons-dance-classes-tennis-lessons)

But then yesterday, when I went on Google Images hunting for a picture of a little girl in a princess outfit, I came to a sudden and painful realization. I had been completely ignoring people with disabilities as I had been so focused on racial diversity. My Google searches of “Asian girl at computer” or “white boy at computer” suddenly seemed inadequate. Diversity and inclusivity are about so much more than race, gender, or any other visible characteristic, but I feel that including pictures that a greater majority of readers can then identify with is incredibly important, especially as this blog focuses on education.

At Tutor Doctor WNY, our students are from many different backgrounds. We have gifted students and special needs students, students from rural parts of Genesee County and the urban centers of Rochester and Buffalo. Because our students are diverse and are continually showing us the strength of diversity, we pledge a continuing commitment to inclusivity, diversity, and sensitivity on this blog. If there are any ways that we can improve our performance in this area, please feel free to let us know your concerns or suggestions.