Research suggests that children’s learning is aided by collaboration between the school and parents in order to educate them. Unfortunately, people in some communities in Nepal still believe that it is not their responsibility to work with their children’s school for the sake of the children’s welfare. They, instead, think the school should take sole responsibility for the training of their wards. Therefore, the parents are looking for opportunities to find faults in the school system all the time.
It, of course, is a parental right to make complaints if they are not satisfied with any of the programmes that the school runs; some of their complaints can absolutely be genuine for the school’s further improvement. However, one does not deny the fact that there is a group of parents who love to speak against the school incessantly in vain. I prefer to name this bunch a “chronic complainers.”
There are many examples of nonsense complaints supplied by these chronic complainers that I have experienced and I can present some of them here.
Let me begin with a mother whose three-year old daughter has not developed her speaking skills to the same level as other children in her class. The mother enters the school furiously and blames teachers, “They have not taught my daughter to speak fluently!” This complaint stuns me. I try my best to convince her, “It entirely depends on individual children to develop speaking; some learn this skill early and some a little late and children’s spoken language (mother tongue) fully develops when they reach the age of five.”
Even though she listens to me, by observing her facial expressions, I can sense that she is doubtful. She may be thinking, I guess, how come this happens! Other children at her girl’s age can speak and why not her daughter? The school must not be teaching appropriately to make her child speak fluently.
Another parent, whose child’s learning ability is quite slow, grumbles that she has changed her daughter’s school three times (please mind that the girl is just six years old) but teachers at all three schools are the same because they cannot teach her daughter properly. Changing schools time and again, the poor lady cannot understand that her daughter will learn gradually and at her own pace; instead she thinks it is the school’s duty to make her child a quick learner in the blink of an eye and that the school teachers are useless if they fail to make that happen.
The third parent comes to school complaining about the fact that he teaches his five year old son until 10 pm every night, yet the teachers cannot teach him correctly as he is unable to do his homework. This complaint makes me wonder why the father wants teachers to teach his son to do his homework if he himself is so dedicated to teaching his son. Can’t he see that the boy needs time to develop his academic skills?
What is more surprising is that it has not even been three months since their children have started school this session and the parents want them to be academically superb. In contrast, I can observe how hard these little ones are trying to fit into a completely new environment whilst trying to learn different things at the same time.
It, of course, is a parental right to make complaints if they are not satisfied with any of the programmes that the school runs; some of their complaints can absolutely be genuine for the school’s further improvement. However, one does not deny the fact that there is a group of parents who love to speak against the school incessantly in vain. I prefer to name this bunch a “chronic complainers.”
There are many examples of nonsense complaints supplied by these chronic complainers that I have experienced and I can present some of them here.
Let me begin with a mother whose three-year old daughter has not developed her speaking skills to the same level as other children in her class. The mother enters the school furiously and blames teachers, “They have not taught my daughter to speak fluently!” This complaint stuns me. I try my best to convince her, “It entirely depends on individual children to develop speaking; some learn this skill early and some a little late and children’s spoken language (mother tongue) fully develops when they reach the age of five.”
Even though she listens to me, by observing her facial expressions, I can sense that she is doubtful. She may be thinking, I guess, how come this happens! Other children at her girl’s age can speak and why not her daughter? The school must not be teaching appropriately to make her child speak fluently.
Another parent, whose child’s learning ability is quite slow, grumbles that she has changed her daughter’s school three times (please mind that the girl is just six years old) but teachers at all three schools are the same because they cannot teach her daughter properly. Changing schools time and again, the poor lady cannot understand that her daughter will learn gradually and at her own pace; instead she thinks it is the school’s duty to make her child a quick learner in the blink of an eye and that the school teachers are useless if they fail to make that happen.
The third parent comes to school complaining about the fact that he teaches his five year old son until 10 pm every night, yet the teachers cannot teach him correctly as he is unable to do his homework. This complaint makes me wonder why the father wants teachers to teach his son to do his homework if he himself is so dedicated to teaching his son. Can’t he see that the boy needs time to develop his academic skills?
What is more surprising is that it has not even been three months since their children have started school this session and the parents want them to be academically superb. In contrast, I can observe how hard these little ones are trying to fit into a completely new environment whilst trying to learn different things at the same time.
(Published in The Rising Nepal on Friday, June 22, 2018 under the title "Beyond Textbooks )
[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired ]
No comments:
Post a Comment
I would appreciate any and all suggestions on making improvements (as long as they are viable).