You're the teacher.
In a recent newspaper article, an university professor of education said of home schooling, "I don't believe that parents can do both roles of teacher and parent." My only question for this professor from Michigan State University is, "Did you ever have any children?" Parents are constantly teaching their children a whole host of things . Parents are the first teachers who teach their child language, dressing, and eating. Most parents teach their children the alphabet and counting before they pass through the school house doors. Parents also teach social skills such as brushing your teeth, setting the table, to coming home on time. Yes, even a complicated concept like time, the parent must teach their child how to read and interpret numbers, read and analyze the face of a clock, and use the concept of time. If parents waited for schools to teach their children the thousands of skills we need in life, none of us would have made it to adulthood.
Can I be the teacher?
Even with all of this parents ask, "Can I teach my child to read and do complex arithmetic?" Let me answer this question by passing on some examples from real life. I'll me tell you about two sets of friends of mine and their experiences with their children.
Reading: a bed time story.
Dale graduated from a rural high school, he spent several years in the army. After the service he attended college for a couple of years. Not sure if school was for him, he went into law enforcement. Dale loved to read to his young daughter and son. Dad especially loved to play fantasy games and word games with his children. Every night he read to Jenny and her little brother Dale Jr. Like most children who are read to, Jenny could soon recite all of the story books by heart. She would "read" the stories to dad as they went through the pages of the familiar well worn books. But was she really "reading?" The answer came one morning at the breakfast table as five year old Jenny took up a cereal box and began to pick out the words. "In this box..." There were a lot of words on the box that Jenny could not read, but Mom and Dad showed her how to sound out the words. Before Jenny started the first grade at six, she not only read the cereal box labels but anything she could lay her hands on. Dale Jr. also learned to read before he stared first grade. Since Dale loved to read to his children so much, at forty he decided to go back to college to complete his degree. He's now a high school teacher.
Deciding to stay home.
Another friend of mine--Sally, like a good mom went to visit her daughter's sixth grade teacher when parent conferences came around. The teacher informed Sally that her daughter Linda was two grade levels below the other students in reading and about everything else. So, as a sixth grader, her daughter could only do fourth grade work. Sally asked, "Well, what are you going to do about it?" Sally was dumb struck when the teacher replied, "Nothing, I simply don't have any time to spend with your daughter. There is nothing I can do." Believe me I have heard a number of parents who tell me this same thing. Sally had been a marginal "C" student in high school and had never taken a college class in her life. During the evening she made a big decision. Linda was not going back to that class or even back to that school. If the school was not willing to teach her daughter, she would teacher her. The next morning Linda did not get on the school bus, but stayed home in home school. Since Sally worked part time, home school had to take place in the morning and in some evenings. To help with reading Sally bought "hooked on phonics" from a TV commercial. Every day Sally and Linda worked on "hooked on phonics". They listened to the tape that came with the course over and over again. Sally showed Linda math and encouraged her to read as much as she could. After five months, Linda missed her friends at school and wanted to return to the sixth grade class. Sally with trepidation sent Linda back to the sixth grade class. Within weeks another teacher conference was due. Sally dutifully went to the conference. This time the teacher said, "Well, I'm so pleased to tell you Linda is reading and doing everything at the sixth grade level. Why it's as if she had never missed one day of school in my class. She knows everything that I've been teaching." Or can we assume that Linda knew everything because she had missed the last five months from that classroom. In five months Sally brought her daughter up two and a half grade levels. Sally would tell you; both, she and Linda had fun learning together.
I want to be just like you.
The old saying, "Do as I say, not as I do," just doesn't work and never will. Our children imitate us to a fault. Children do as we do. If parents value education enough to sit down and teach their children, children respond not with simply learning but with the love of learning. I currently am teaching my daughter many of the basic facts of high school biology. We struggle with a very poorly written textbook and long drawn out assignments. But as we work together, we talk about the biology facts and how they affect us and our world. Again and again my daughter responds with, "Wow, that's interesting," or "Oh, that's so fascinating."
The parent's decision.
Parents are teachers! It is a fact of life. An inescapable fact of life. Our children will do as we do. I often see four types of parents in relationship to school work. Those whose children do wonderfully and there is little supervision. We all could pray for such a God given gift and blessing. Then their are the parents who yell and scream at their kids to do their homework. After the big blow ups, the parents go watch TV and the kids hid in their rooms. Unfortunately, the kids only learn about yelling and screaming and the homework remains unfinished and the grades don't improve. A third set of parents accept that their children are just like themselves, no good in school. These parents blow off education and the school. So, little wonder their children also blow off school and give teachers and other students a headache. Lastly, there are the parents that I described earlier. They actually sit down and decide to teach their kids Dads like Dale and Moms like Sally realize that no one will care or give as much as parents do. I've watch a number of parents with high school educations sit down and make sure that their children succeeded at school -- public, parochial, private, or home school.
Parent territory.
You are your child's teacher! Teaching came with the territory. Many, many parents are realizing this today. If one looks down history and the centuries of human living, parents have always been the primary educational force in their children's lives. You've gained a lot of knowledge and understanding as an adult. So, start today, expand the education and the mind of your child. If being your child's teacher is important to you, then learning will be important to your child.
