Many schools stayed at the start of term, leaving “working from home” mums faced with maintaining a work/life balance whilst coping with their child’s online education. Teaching your children can be hard during lockdown. However, with a little planning and goal setting you can create a home learning environment for your kids that will help reduce anxiety for all of you.
Firstly, understand the key strategies that help kids learn :
- link theory to reality by demonstrating what you want to teach
- focus on building vocabulary and ensure the meaning of words are understood
- make sure your child understands the basics before introducing more complex material or concepts
- kids learn by understanding, not memorising
- motivate them and implement practical, joyful, interesting activities in relation to the subject your child is learning
- get to know your child’s learning style and personalise a study strategy
- ensure there is a schedule and a dedicated space for home learning
Let go of stress and worries!
What would Einstein do?
Einstein put great emphasis on the importance of understanding things. He said ”Anyone can know. The point is to understand.” He also said that if you can’t explain something to a six-year-old, you don’t understand what you’re explaining. How do you know your child understands? Wait for the “aha” moment, you can see when the penny drops!
The importance of learning from mistakes
We work hard to ‘train children to pass exams’ but they don’t always understand what they are learning. They will memorise to avoid failure, leaving many of them stressed and fearing forthcoming exams. I hope that the events of the pandemic will give rise to change. Education teaches us to always know the answer and avoid making mistakes, but it is only by making mistakes and facing challenges that we are forced to formulate novel and creative solutions.
Redefining our children’s Education
We have the chance to change how we approach education as we step into the 4th Industrial Revolution. How will we cope with this challenge? What skills and knowledge will we need to help our children to succeed? How will schools pivot meet these new challenges?
I believe that it’s time to reframe how we think about the situation. In his article, “Learning through play: how schools can educate students through technology” John Goodwin argues: “While traditional educational metrics of literacy and numeracy are vital, society also requires learners to have a range of holistic skills to thrive in the modern world. These include creative, technology, innovation and interpersonal skills”.
Learn to love Learning
Learning to love and embrace learning is an extremely important life skill! I refuse to buy the media stories that: “Kids are falling behind academically”. Kids are only falling behind if we choose to measure them on scales that have been broken for decades. They aren’t falling behind they are adapting, learning new skills, overcoming. Kids are surviving a pandemic that has shaken their world before they have fully understood it.
