FUN TIME

Fun means amusement, enjoyment or pleasure. An adage says “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Having fun is part of education as it makes students learn fast. Students shouldn’t learn in a tensed environment, they need refreshment especially when they have been taught a lot of things or they no longer understand what the teacher is teaching them.

I heard of a family sometimes ago whereby the parent promised to give their only son the best education he could ever think of.

The boy attended one of the best schools in town and all his daily activities were filled up with academics and no play. He did go to school by 7:00 am and back home by 5:00 pm. The private tutors were also employed to teach him during the school break time and from 5:30 pm after coming back from school till 8:00 pm. He would go to the dining table to eat immediately after the private coaching and then be dosing while eating. He would be helped from the dining table to his room to sleep and woke in the morning to start the same activities and complete the same cycle.

However, the boy continued this for the whole session, even the private tutors did teach him during the vacation period. At the end of the session he came home with a woeful result. What a shame! His parents were furious because of the performance of their child considering the amount of money they have spent for the tutors. So they planned to discuss the issue with the school counselor. After narrating the issue with the counselor, the counselor made them to know that the failure of the child is due to the fact that the child has no rest or vacation time. He told them to try the next session by giving the child enough rest and reasonable play time. At the end of the day, the boy made one of the best results in the school.

Moreover, this true life story should be a lesson to both parents and teachers/guardians that are making the study environment too tense for the students to learn. Let your wards be part of the school system. The reason for planning the school curriculum to involve break times, game and sporting activities and vocational studies is to bring up a child in a loving/enjoyable environment and give them their own will to choose what they like. Allow them to play in their play time and work in their work time. By so doing, there will be balance in academics and non academics activities in the school.

In conclusion, the students should be allowed to partake in the psychomotor skills not only the cognitive and affective skills. The three domains in education must be considered in order to achieve educational goals.

PARENT/TEACHER'S RELATIONSHIP CONTS

As a parent, if you really want to have a good rapport with the teacher that teaches your child, you should not act on any word you hear about them without finding out how true it is. They love your children and I want you to know that besides the mother and the father of a child, teachers are the parent to them, honor them as parents too.

I once heard a primary school boy telling his mother that, “that teacher is very stupid” and the laughed. What has such a parent taught her child? As parents, we should not always lodge complains about them, rather we must look for ways to communicate with them and tell them what we feel. Make them happy and see them friends and co-workers so that they can make your children happy.

In addition, if you see a school whereby the teachers are not being honored by the school managements and the parents, the school will not grow, because the teachers will either work in fear or work with unconcern. I was looking for job sometimes ago and I went to a school to meet with the school principal. After passing through series of tests and interviews, he said I passed the interview and we started talking about salary, he made a statement and said, “if you are not comfortable with twenty thousand naira, tell me because I want to go out now”. I just stood up from the chair bid him farewell and left because I’m very sure that he would later tell me that ‘ I’m not paying you to think for me, I’m only paying you to work for me’. Imagine this ridiculous amount with an insulting tone. 

Moreover, honors and respect should be given to teachers professionals in their field as we are professionals in our various fields too. They are trained to train people, they try to become the parent of the children they did not give birth to and cater for them as their own children. They still work despite all insults and unworthy pay. They give birth to other professions and yet they are paid the least salary. May be that is why they say that “the reward of teachers is in heaven”.

In conclusion, let us begin to see teachers as God sent helpers to our children

PARENT/TEACHER’ S RELATIONSHIP

On this post, I’m going to talk about how parents should relate with the teachers of their children. After reading this post, the parents will know why they must be close with the teachers of their children and vice versa. Therefore, keep reading and enjoy your stay.

Both the parents and the teachers must work together for the purpose of bringing up a child with a great mind. Though, by profession, the teachers become the parents when the children are in school, but the parents continue the parenting when they get home.

What I’m trying to say is that both of them are involved in the process of parenting and teaching. The challenge here is that, the incapability of some teachers has given the parents the chance of molesting them, even before the students and school management. The teachers should be the one to prove that they are capable of handling the children so that the parents can entrust them with their children.

Mistakes are inevitable and no one is an epitome of knowledge, if any teacher makes a mistake, a parent can walk up to him/her and kindly making a correction. That settles the matter. What I’ve learnt over the time is that any corrected mistake will not be repeated. I had such an experience in one of the schools I worked. I was employed as a mathematics teacher and was told to teach English language because a teacher should be able to teach all subjects when he/she is employed to teach in a primary school. This became a great challenge for me. In the course of teaching the children, I made a mistake in my spoken English by saying that, ‘I lives at ……………….’.

Furthermore, the children told their parents about it when they got home and it became a serious issue that I cannot handle. Most of the parents came to school to report the matter to the management and two of them came to meet me in the class, shouted at me and insulted me but I summoned courage and told them it was a mistake. Later, the head teacher called me to her office in the presence of some of the parents and said, “Truly, she had made a mistake and I’m very sure that she won’t make such a mistake again”. Could you believe that this statement settles all grudges in the mind of all the parents that were in the office that day? When they left, the head teacher spoke with me and encouraged me to learn the subject very well before going to the class to teach. If the head teacher did not encourage me the way she did I wouldn’t have become a writer today. Though, teachers are experts in their field but they have their weaknesses. 

ROLES OF PARENTS IN EDUCATION CONT.

Moreover, Children must be well trained from their young age before they are admitted into schools and throughout the school age. They must be taught good morals. I once said it in one of my posts that children with good and high moral standard learn easily from the teacher and are known to be brilliant as well as intelligent students. Let’s give them the training they need to cope with other children outside so that they will not learn it in a hard way.

One of the things that encourage children to learn with competition is motivation. Parents should motivate their children when they perform well and rebuke them when they are wrong. Motivation does not only involve giving material things. Let’s learn to tell them sweet words like ‘ you are brilliant’, ‘ I love you’, ‘well done’, ‘ keep it up’, ‘ you are really good’, ‘bravo’, ‘  you are beautiful’, ‘ you are handsome’, you make me happy’, ‘ I trust you’, and so on. All these are motivational words that keep them acting well. You can as well buy gifts for your children if you can afford it. Whenever you rebuke them, let them know your reason for doing it and correct them immediately. Motivation is a good learning encouragement, the teachers do this and parents should not be left out.

All parents should see it as appoint of duty to pray for their children at least once a day according to their belief. Some parents are fond of cursing their children and this should not be done, it is totally wrong. If you curse them today, it will have a great impact on them for the rest of their lives and you will surely partake in it. Parents should always use their mouth to declare good things into the lives of their children so that they will not become servants to other children in the nearest future.

In conclusion, education remains the best legacy, parents should give it to their children, children should embrace it and teachers should do it right.

ROLES OF PARENTS IN EDUCATION

Parents /Guardians must monitor their ward's academic activities in the school when they get home by checking their books everyday and ensure they do their assignments. This is how you will know what you are paying for. It should not be the work of the house help to know whether your children are doing well in school or doing their home work properly. You should find time to monitor their school work. No matter how limited your time is, you still need to follow up with what the teacher teaches them so that you will not lodge any complain when the deed is done. When the children are at home, you become their teacher  and you should  always  give them  room to trust you as they trust their teachers.

It is the responsibility of the parents to pay the school fees of their children on time before they are sent out of the school. One of the ways in which the school management punish the school fees defaulters, is by sending them out of the classroom but still allow them in the school compound or they are sent out of the school to meet their parents at home. What happens to the former category is that the children involve do not always inform their parents when they get home that they are denied of receiving lectures because some of them will forget to inform their parents while some love to be out of the class due to playfulness and laziness. 

Furthermore, for the latter category, most of them do not go home directly, they go to their friend's houses while some go and stay home alone. This is how some of the girls are harassed and raped by friends, families, neighbors, and elders but they keep these illicit activities to themselves. Most of the boys learn different wayward activities like smoking, raping, drinking, and cultism.

 Another role of the parents in education is to be observant. Parents must observe their children to know what's going on in their mind. Some of these children are passing through terrible situations but they pretend to be alright. I am a teacher and I have seen a lot of cases of children that find in difficult to concentrate when the teacher is teaching them because of what is happening or has happened to them. 

Sometimes ago I told a girl to see me in my office when I observe that she was sleeping while I was teaching. After interrogating her, she told me of a gate man that did attack her on her way home almost every day, she said the raped her severally to the extent of giving her drugs to use to prevent pregnancy. Can you imagine a girl of 15 years in such a terrible situation? This same girl told me about how she aborted pregnancy for her guardian’s driver. Some children have examination tension and some have phobia in some subjects but their parents are not aware of this, if you are aware of what they are going through it will be easy to help them out. Parents need to look at their children with a keen eye and know when they someone to talk to and someone to show them love and care. 

WHO IS AN IDEAL PARENT

According to the dictionary, a parent is one of the two persons from which one is immediately biologically descended; a mother or father. A person who acts as a parent in rearing a child, he/she could be a step-parent or adaptive parent or a guardian to the ward.

An ideal parent makes provisions for the well being of his/her children and does everything within his/her power to ensure that the children are not denied their basic rights such as education, medical care, good clothes, food and shelter. It is the duty of an ideal parent to cater for her children. He does not overlook the need of his children because of his job, though he has to earn a living.

An ideal parent stands as a role model in character to his/her children. He teaches them in the way of God, so that they will not go wayward. He monitors the kind of company they keep and the kinds of cloth they wear. It is the responsibility of an ideal parent to caution his children when they go wrong.

Moreover, an ideal parent ensures that the interest of the family comes first before any other thing. There should be good rapport between an ideal parent and his/her children. He should not allow child abuse whether physically or verbally. He takes time to study the behavior of his children in order to detect any problem with them and seeks a way of solving it.

Finally, an ideal parent inculcates good moral in his/her children. He gives them moral instruction about the activities of life so that when they grow up, they will have good attitude to pass to their children.