The Educated Child: A Parent's Guide from Preschool through Eighth Grade

Book by Bennett William J Finn Jr Chester E Cribb Jr John

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to help you secure a good education for your child from early childhood through the eighth grade. As far as learning goes, these years are far and away the most important. They are the time when children acquire the bricks and mortar of a solid education -- the knowledge, skills, habits, and ideals that will serve as the foundation of learning and character throughout their lives. If that edifice is solid by the end of eighth grade, then a student's future is bright indeed. If poorly constructed, the outlook is much dimmer.

Our aim is three-fold. First, we hope to remind parents of their own responsibilities in educating their children. There are few secrets to raising good students. What needs to be done is mostly a matter of common sense. But there is much you can do, and a few things that you must do, to see that your child learns well.

Second, this book will help you determine whether your school is doing a good job. Many parents assume that their children's schools maintain high expectations and offer a quality education. They naturally want to believe that the academic program is strong. Our message to you is: "Trust but verify." The reality is that too many American schools are not doing right by their pupils. In the coming chapters, you'll find some tools you can use to figure out whether your child is truly getting a good education, and some suggestions about how to correct problems at school.

Third, this book paints a fairly detailed picture of what a well-educated child knows and can do. For much of American history, there existed the idea of a "good education." It meant possessing certain knowledge and skills, and behaving in a certain way. Today, regrettably, such a vision is missing from many schools. They are reluctant to specify the lessons that all children should learn. This is a shame, because some things are more important to know than others.

This book helps you know what to look for in a good education. It reminds you of what to stand for as a parent, and what you should not stand for. It draws on common sense, the experience of many teachers and parents, the wisdom of the ages, and much of the best available research. We can all use allies in our efforts to raise children. Think of this book as an ally to help you keep yourself, your child, and your school on track.

You Are Your Child's Most Important Teacher

There is an old saying that a parent's heart is the child's schoolroom. Your dreams, your efforts, your examples and loving exhortations -- these set the boundaries of your child's education. The seminal lessons taught in the home stay with children as they make their way through school and life, shaping their interests, ideals, and enthusiasm for learning. Parents are children's first and most important teachers. Raising your child is your number one job. Seeing that he gets a good education is, in many respects, the crux of that task.

The pressures of time, work, and competing interests tempt us to hand more and more of our educational responsibilities to others. Parents often get a subtle, alluring, but deeply damaging message from today's culture: your role is not quite so important after all. You can delegate. You can outsource. Children will suffer no harm -- in fact, they may reap some benefits -- when they get more of their care and guidance from others. Specialists and experts can fill in for you, pay attention for you, make decisions for you, give guidance where you cannot. Let others take charge of education: curriculum directors, counselors, child care professionals, even children themselves. It is a seductive siren song. It gives the green light for surrendering part of a sacred duty.

You must resist these temptations. For good or ill, you are always your child's most influential teacher. Even when he reaches school age, you are still the dean-at-home, the chief academic officer. The more involved you are, the better your child's chances of getting a good education. If you begin to remove yourself from the learning process, those chances start to plummet. If you turn over your most important responsibilities to others, you may doom his school career. That amounts to educational abandonment, a pernicious form of child neglect. You need to be in charge of your child's education. So take charge.

Several critical elements can come only from you. First among these is your love. The psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner says that the one indispensable condition for a child's successful upbringing is that at least one adult must have a deep and irrational attachment to him. In other words, someone must be absolutely crazy about that child. Children are put on this earth to be loved. They need unconditional devotion (not unconditional approval). When they grow up knowing that an adult is always there as guardian angel and guide, they thrive. When they sense that such devotion is missing, things can begin to go terribly wrong with their educations and their lives.

Your attitude about education is another key predictor of academic success. Your child looks to you for cues about what is important in life. He is always watching for your approval or disapproval, for your interest or indifference. If you care, he cares. If he sees that you value learning, he will probably do the same. If he observes you putting education second or third, he may not take his schoolwork seriously. Consistent reinforcement means everything. The messages you send determine in no small way how well your child reads, writes, and thinks. Every morning, you must send him off to school with a good night's sleep, a decent breakfast, and a positive attitude toward learning.

Instilling the highest ideals is crucial: Belief in the value of hard work. A strong sense of responsibility. A willingness to keep trying until success finally comes. Respect for legitimate authority. Such traits are the engines that power learning at school, in college, and in life. Academic success depends on them. Transmission of these virtues is more than just part of the territory of parenthood. It is a fundamental obligation.

Your expectations are all important. Children strive to clear the bars that their parents set. So long as those standards are fair and reasonable, they help kids flourish. Parents' expectations determine whether children finish homework on time and study for tests. They separate good students from bad. They help set the course of life. It is said that Abraham Lincoln's mother told him over and over again what kind of good, hardworking man she hoped he would become. Many years later Lincoln observed, "All that I am, and all that I hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." Setting standards for children is not placing a burden on them. It is an expression of love and confidence.

Good students usually come from homes where moms and dads have tried to create a rich learning environment. They've stimulated their children's curiosity by showing them that the world is a fascinating place and helping them explore it. This does not require you to spend lots of money or have a degree in education. It mostly consists of seeing that your child grows up with interesting things to do. It means reading aloud to him, and listening to him read aloud. It means playing games, asking and answering questions, explaining things as best you can. It means exposing him to varied experiences and visiting places together -- taking walks in the woods, working in the garden, occasionally going to a museum or monument. Such activities turn children into curious students.

Education success comes from putting enough time into the right work. What one spends time on is what one ends up knowing. If your child spends endless hours playing video games, he will know all the ins and outs of video games. If he spends time on math and science, then that's what he will know. Academic achievement also hinges, to no small degree, on the time you devote to education. If you spend time helping your loved one learn to read, master those multiplication tables, and listen carefully when others are talking, his chances of doing well in school are much better.

Know what your child is doing -- where he is, who his friends are, what books he reads, what movies he sees. Keep track of schoolwork -- what he is learning, whether he's finishing his assignments, if he's prepared for that upcoming test. The parents of good students keep an eye on what the school teaches. They have a sense of the expectations it maintains, the discipline it requires. Your child's education demands your vigilance. You must stay alert. No one else will do it for you. When a parent's attention wanders, a child may quickly veer off the learning track. It may be harder than you think to get him back on.

You teach by example. Aesop tells a wonderful fable about a crab and his son scurrying over the sand. The father chastised his child: "Stop walking sideways! It's much more becoming to stroll straightforward." The young crab replied: "I will, father dear, just as soon as I see how. Show me the straight way, and I'll walk in it behind you." There is nothing like the quiet power of intellectual example and moral example. Parents teach in everything they do. More often than not, your child will walk it the way you walk it.

For most moms and dads, faith is a crucial part of education. Believing that children are moral and spiritual beings, they want their loved ones to be educated in a way that reflects those beliefs. Public schools, by law, cannot be of help in the inculcation of faith. But there are other institutions -- churches, synagogues, mosques, and of course religious schools -- that can be critical teachers. Bear in mind that religious training can help young people become better students, and there is ample evidence that faith safeguards children from threats that wreck educations at an early age, such as drugs, alcohol, and sexual experimentation.

The rules you maintain lie at the foundations of a good education -- rules such as "All schoolwork must be finished before you talk to your friends on the phone," and "Always speak politely to teachers." Without clear direction from parents, most students do not know how to conduct themselves.

Rules about television are especially critical to academic success. In this country, television has become an enemy of education. In many homes, it is a constant interference with learning. Television is not only a distraction and sometimes a cesspool, but watching it also means your child is losing the opportunity to do something more valuable. Almost anything else -- reading, exercising, playing a game, talking with parents, even sleeping -- is a better use of your child's time. The research is clear: excessive television hurts a youngster's school achievement. A TV set on all the time is a sign of parental indifference. Yes, there is some good TV, but if you care about education, your youngster cannot sit slack-jawed hour after hour in front of the tube.

These, then, are the fundamentals. Your love. Your attitude about education. Your efforts to stimulate your child's curiosity. Your ideals, rules, and expectations. The time and attention you pay, and the examples you set. These themes are at the core of this book. They are necessary ingredients on your end. They do not guarantee academic achievement, but they make it much more likely. They put your child's education in the hands best able to direct it: yours.

Lessons That Good Schools Teach

Parents often attach the most importance to higher education, yet elementary school has a far greater impact. Except for family and church, no institution is so influential. We ask elementary schools to help shape our students' first and lasting ideas about themselves, their country, and the world. We expect them to teach basic knowledge and nourish the appetite for learning. In the K-8 years, children gain -- or fail to gain -- skills they will need throughout their educations and careers. They develop habits and values they will carry the rest of their days. Elementary school is an invitation and encouragement to a fulfilled life. In educational significance, its mission dwarfs all others.

The authors have visited hundreds of schools across the country. We have learned that good elementary schools share a certain character or ethos. They teach certain lessons and uphold certain ideals. It takes no expertise to recognize whether a school is doing right by its students. You can begin to get a good sense of it just by spending a little time in its classrooms and corridors.

Good schools attend to the basic subjects: English, history, geography, math, science, art, and music. They focus on these academic fundamentals. They don't clutter the curriculum with so many other topics that the basics get pushed aside. Students know that learning this core curriculum is serious business.

Good elementary schools concentrate on essential skills. Perhaps most of all, that means teaching students how to comprehend the written word. Reading is the heart and soul of elementary education. If a child goes on to high school unable to read fluently, his chances for academic success are in great peril. Other vital skills also need to be mastered before eighth grade. We expect elementary schools to teach children to speak and write well; to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and measure things; to think logically and clearly; to ask good questions, analyze problems, and search for correct answers.

Knowledge is just as important as skills. Good elementary schools recognize that there are some facts and ideas that all American students should know. For example, they teach students what a right triangle is, what happened in 1776, where the earth is in our solar system, what a Trojan horse is. Good schools spell out for parents the fundamental knowledge they intend to transmit. Teaching it is serious work, not a chance by-product of learning skills.

Elementary schools hold the responsibility of transmitting to each new generation what may be called our "common culture," the things that bind Americans together as one people. In its highest form, this common culture is the sum of our intellectual inheritance, our legacy from all the ages that have gone before us. It is the knowledge, ideas, and aspirations that shape our understanding of who we are as a people. Our common culture is found in documents such as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; in principles such as the belief that all men are created equal; and in events from our past, such as the landings of the Mayflower at Plymouth and the Eagle on the moon. It lies in great stories and poems, such as Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Emma Lazarus's "The New Colossus." Americans of all backgrounds want schools to acquaint children with our common legacy. As the journalist Walter Lippmann once observed, no culture can survive that is ignorant of its own traditions.

Teaching cultural literacy is part of the effort of raising good citizens. This task, too, belongs in considerable part to the elementary school: to help lay the groundwork for young people's eventual entry into the democratic community of responsible adults. Teachers acquaint pupils with their rights as well as their duties to their fellow citizens and their country. Teddy Roosevelt once said that "the first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight." Good schools teach such civic virtues. They help children learn to live up to their obligations, not to shrink from toil, and to give others the respect they ar...