Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Education lockdown
Plenty parents can do to encourage learning during school closures
AS usual, people seem to think teachers can do the impossible. Providing home schooling during the coronavirus crisis without adequate preparation time for creating materials and learning new software is a tremendous challenge … especially when teachers probably have their own families
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at home with their own children demanding attention.
All is not lost, however. Families can do the following to maintain learning experiences, all without a computer.
■ Read every day. It doesn’t matter what. Buy magazines when you go to the grocery store. If you can’t afford magazines, see if your neighbors have any. Look around your home and gather all reading materials together in a small library. A dictionary would be a wonderful book to have available. Cookbooks, directions for the TV set — look for reading material anywhere. Every box, every can, etc., has something written on it that can be read and discussed.
Have children write their own books and share. Books don’t have to be written on paper. How else can you put a book together? If you need glue, a little flour and water mixed together will do the job. The way to learn to read is to read. Parents should ask their children questions about what they have read. Give small rewards for reading so many pages or a small book.
■ The way to learn to write is to write. Find a tablet of paper somewhere or get an inexpensive school notebook full of blank pages or just fold a few pages in half and stack them together and have each child begin a journal. We are in the middle of a world crisis and, in the future, people are going to wonder what it was like. Remember Anne Frank? Have your kids write their thoughts down about their lives. Write a little bit each day. Have the little ones draw pictures, and you can write their stories down for them.
■ For younger kids, now is the time to practice arithmetic. Have them count things in the house. Have them help cook. Reading the cookbook or directions on cans or boxes is great reading exercise. Cooking itself is all about measurement. Math.
For older kids, start memorizing the multiplication tables. Yes, the multiplication tables. Boring by itself, but try to make a game of it. If you’re not good at making up games, just sit the kids down and make them do it. You’ll be surprised how fast they’ll learn. Your math teachers will love you. Challenge your older children to learn the tables through 23. It has been said that people who learn their times tables through 23 have very little trouble with higher math in high school or college. Most errors in math are simple computation mistakes, which make people think they don’t understand higher math. Knowing your times tables checks for errors.
■ Social studies? Are you kidding me? Watch the news on TV. We’re in the middle of a very controversial presidential race. Discuss the COVID-19 pandemic with your children. History is being made every moment of every day.
■ Home economics/life skills. Learn to cook (or help cook) simple meals. Show your kids how to clean house properly, how to take care of the car and how to fix things around the house. Go through everyone’s clothes and make repairs. Sew on buttons. Boys and girls need to learn this. Don’t forget washing and ironing.
■ Physical education. Dance to their favorite music, don’t just listen to it. Have contests: Who can do the most jumping jacks? Who can do the most pushups? Who can jump the farthest? It’s endless.
■ Science. What is the coronavirus? What does it do to the human body? Why are governments making people stay inside? This is all on TV. Have kids watch science-based shows on TV.
Cooking is also science! Why do things melt with heat? What kind of science was used to make (or grow) this? If you don’t know the answers, have the children make lists of their questions, and someone else will eventually answer them.
Every question is a good question. The solution to any problem begins with understanding the problem. If children have a problem, do not solve it for them. Ask, “What’s the problem?” Then ask, “How can you solve this problem?” You can make minor suggestions, but let them do the majority of the work.
Believe me, you’re going to have just as much trouble getting your children to sit in front of a computer and do online work or struggle through the learning packets teachers are creating. I hate to say it, but a lot of that effort is going to be wasted, and teachers know it.
The only real thing parents have to do is be parents. You have to make the hard decisions and make sure your children are supervised and doing something constructive.
The decisions you make now as parents will strongly affect the futures of your children. They won’t like you much for making them do things, but it’s your job. You’ll get a taste of what teachers do every day—except they do it with 35 or 40 kids at a time in Clark County.
If you do nothing else this month, get your children to read something and write in a journal every day. You have no idea how much good this will do them.
Have your kids write their thoughts down about their lives. Write a little bit each day. Have the little ones draw pictures, and you can write their stories down for them.