I write this at the close of the first term of 2012. How is it possible that every term seems to get busier and fuller? Surely we are becoming so effective that we can streamline and minimise?! No, it seems there are ‘too many’ good ideas out there and we feel we are doing our learners an injustice to leave things out. For example, we are adjusting to the new CAPS system (that’s the Curriculum and Planning structures) which have been set out as the new way forward. Since I qualified in 2000, trained in Curriculum 2005 and a bit of Outcomes Based Education, we were then trained in National Curriculum Standards, then the Revised National Curriculum Standards, which involved many, many lists of numbers and critical outcomes and assessment standards. Now it is CAPS and gone are the words “Literacy” and “Numeracy” and “learning area”. We are back to English and Maths and subjects. In Grade 2 we have had much re-shuffling and introducing of new concepts which we have not covered in Grade 2 before. I think some other Grades were not as hard hit in terms of revising their year’s planning and tests.

Also, the standards have changed again. We now have a 7-point scale instead of a 4-point scale. (A “fail” used to be a 1, but now that a “4” is around 50%, a fail is a 3, 2 or 1,) although in Maths a fail is only a 2 or a 1. Correct! You can pass Foundation Phase Maths with 40%!! HOW, I ask the inventors of CAPS, HOW can a child who knows less than half the basic fundamental principles of how numbers work, HOW can this child progress comfortably in our system? Passing in Foundation Phase is NOT like passing a subject in High School or University, where students used to joke they had studied too hard if they got 51% for a 50%pass. It is NOT NICE for a child to scrape through their formative years. They feel it, feel left behind, have to work harder just to stay in the game, and their self-esteem takes a huge knock. I believe we are setting our children up to fail if we do not send them through strong from grade to grade.

When confronted with the possibility of a Repeat, many parents thrash around wildly looking for alternate solutions instead of ‘doing that’ to their child. And yes, it is a BIG decision, not to be taken lightly as it could be a year wasted, an extra year of school fees, the social adjustments, etc. But if a child truly isn’t coping, I ask, how can you “do that” to them – pushing them through like a lamb to the slaughter where they are sure to fail, watched by their peers, never achieving what their peers achieve? Every Repeat child I have ever had, has blossomed in their repeat year. I have never witnessed a wasted repeat myself. I bet there are some out there, especially where their reason for not coping was, eg. a concentration problem, and parents refused to try medication, and all other measures were good, but not enough without the concentration element intact. There would be only so much progress that child could make by re-doing it all. Repetition alone does not undo concentration problems. If that was so, the child would never have had to repeat in the first place if you could just drill drill drill those concepts in like a parrot.

So here we are at the end of our first term with CAPS, and in my class of 30, no failures in Maths (due to the 40% pass standard), though those few that DID end up with a “3” have huge gaps in their understanding of numbers and will need Remedial and daily drill to make reparations; but with 5 failures in English. Five! This means they achieved an average of a “3” (ie. less than 50%) for  the categories: Listening/Speaking; Reading; Phonics and Spelling; Written work; (and Handwriting – but that does not really impact on the average). Incidentally too, CAPS has ignored ‘spelling’ but we have decided to stick to learning our weekly list of sight words (ie. those words which cannot be phonetically sounded out). “Beach” would be a Phonics words, seeing as we teach the sounds ea and ch; but “come” would be a Spelling word as it does not follow phonics rules, and must just be learned drill-style. Four of the five who failed Term 1 English are boys, as the research suggests is more likely, and one is a girl. None of them are second-language learners!! Two have clear (well, quite clear to me, not so much to their parents) learning problems, one has a major concentration problem which is finally being addressed – after a year of stalling (and now hence, a year’s worth of backlog of unmastered Phonics sounds and poor Reading skills), and the other two are a combination of lazy and distractible, with parents who are waking up too late to the fact that these children should be able to do more.

The work we send home as homework should be easy to young children. We don’t send work that has to be taught, just consolidated or drilled. In maths, we can teach 5+5=10; 6+6=12 until they understand single-digit doubling perfectly, but unless they go home and drill it until they know it like poem, they will be slow in mental calculations which demand instant recall. Here is where either lack of homework, or lack of focus, or lack of application, is the culprit. (And you, parents, can help with all of those! No more viewing homework as a “cute time” where your baby dabbles in some “real work” while you coo about how clever they are regardless of how they fare!)

Let this just be a helpful warning – if your child is battling with homework, speak to the teacher. What more can you do? Do they need extra lessons or Remedial? How do they compare to the other children in terms of coping? If they are tested weekly on the Spelling list and Phonics sounds that they had to learn all week, they should be getting pretty close to full marks for those tests! Unfortunately (but obviously), it’s the standardised tests based on all previously learned words/sounds which determine the cumulative mark, but help them consolidate by making sure they know the weekly work. Then go back frequently and revise old work! It’s in the application, not the parrot-fashion weekly regurgitation, that we can tell who has ‘got it’ and who has not! But if they have not even “got” the weekly work, then be concerned and investigate. Is this an attitude problem, a memory problem, a concentration problem, a specific Literacy learning problem, a not drilled-enough-problem, a second-language problem…?

The first term of Grade 2 is really about revising and checking all the ducks are in a row before surging forward into new work and a faster pace. There is a big jump between Grade 1 and Grade 3, and it is called Grade 2! It is a growing up and waking up year… and I suspect, not just for the children, but for you parents too!

As the “silly season” approaches I would like to bring up the topic of MONEY in an educational context.

Firstly, the Grade 2’s have been learning about money in the fourth term. It is quite apparent in class which children have had some experience of working with money and those who have not! It is a life skill to know how to make up R2 , or how much change one would get. If your child is 8 years or older : do they know that 100c makes R1? Can they add up a small pile of coins? (it’s one thing to do on paper in a worksheet, but open your wallet and let them count! They will love it.) Have you let them pay for the bread or the milk at the counter, and choose the right note to cover the amount? Do they know that we keep Rands and cents separate (ie. R2 + 20c is not 2+20=22).

Without this sort of practice, children battle to grasp this tricky concept if they hear about it at school for the first time. They also really battle with sums like R5 – R1,50 because numerically it is not worked out as a sum that they are familiar with (5 take away 150? 5 take away 1.5?) unless they are used to working out how to build up to R5. Then they could start with R1,50 and work their way to R5. We can teach the concept and allow time for practice and application, but there is nothing like real life practice over time for concepts to really make sense and become so ‘everyday’ that children do not even have to think hard to draw on class learning.

It is also a very interesting exercise to ask young children what they estimate the prices of grocery items to be. If they begin to have a concept of bread= roughly R10, then when the family dines out as a treat and you say that the pizza costs R50, then they can understand that it is the equivalent of 5 days worth of sandwiches!

As Christmas approaches and that looming long holiday, use the time to get the children to perform chores for cash (over and above their usual unpaid chores… they DO need to have a sense of responsibility and belonging, and realise that everyone has a job in a family). Discuss various chores or ‘services’ and price list beforehand – the harder the chore, the more you pay! And then require them to think about these (possibly unheard of) options: 1) SAVING some earnings and 2)spending earnings on gifts for others – and thus making them more meaningful than merely sticking out a hand for money from parents. If you could show children that mom would love a bunch of flowers bought from your hard-won earnings RATHER than an expensive, impersonal gift, then you would have taught them the value of money AND hard work indeed.

Our children are growing up as an “instant gratification” generation because of the way we live on credit. They do not have the same sense of the value of money that we (hopefully) had growing up, because there is not the same process of saving before one can buy. If we want it or need it, we buy it on credit. This has bred a culture of people who live above their means, live in debt and who do not save as a rule. If I think of my domestic worker, she has no idea of how to budget and make money last. Yes, domestic workers are paid very little. Yet, she had accounts in more than one clothing shop, and allowed her children to shop there monthly. Our children need to be trained in being money-smart. We give these lessons at school, but they mean nothing if not backed up AND practised in daily life at home.

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This week at my school we held an assembly to honour our ex-Primary school pupils who had gone on to achieve well in their High Schools. They were invited back if they had done well academically, achieved a level in either sport or cultural spheres, or been recognised as a prefect or leader in their Matric year.

I made a special effort to be at this assembly (we Foundation Phase teachers and pupils do not attend the Senior assembly) because these grown-up ‘children’ were in my first class of Grade 2’s when I was appointed in 2001. What an absolute delight it was to see these near-adults who have done so well! The previous years of these annual assemblies had meant little to me, as I recognised the children, but had never taught them myself. The point I would like to make here is that once a child has been in your care for a whole year, you can only want the very best for them, and be (almost) as proud as a parent when they achieve. Our headmaster touched on this in his address to the past pupils, where he called them “still ours”. He said that in teaching a child there is an emotional deposit which we lay down as class teachers and even as coaches. We become emotionally invested in seeing “our” children achieve.

I felt this so keenly when I saw my first “naughty boy”, Jason, walk down that aisle in the assembly. I have a soft spot for those mischievous boys who are not really naughty, but just unable to contain themselves, and are just too charming to be angry at. I told Jason’s mother in his Grade 2 year that his future may not be in academics, but that I would see him in the Green and Gold one day. Now here was this strapping young chap, having made Border rugby, heading straight for my classroom after the assembly to give me a big hug and tell me, “Ma’am, I told my mom I would come straight here”. I get tearful all over again just writing this. An emotional deposit. A good teacher will invest her heart into her children.

This is also the reason why I have not been able to give up or wash my hands of my two boys this year who have been making little or no progress because both are severely hampered by a lack of focus. I have addressed this issue of attention deficit in a recent article. I am of the belief that medication is worth a try and I explained my reasons in that recent article, primarily because I have seen it transform children from strugglers into achievers. These boys have extremely medication-resistant parents, which is their right, if the child can be helped in another way. Now in Term 4, one boy is failing Literacy and hence in danger of repeating the year, which would be a crime as he is intelligent. After a year of Occupational Therapy and Remedial, he still cannot retain information long enough to transfer it into his school work. (ie. he can remember most of his Spelling words for his weekly test, but there is no carry-over into permanent knowledge.)

Finally his mom became desperate enough to try medication. In our meeting, she relayed to me a conversation she had with a friend of hers in trying to understand why her child is struggling so much. (It is very difficult for people who have never struggled at school to understand WHY their child is struggling, what is feels like to struggle, or to grasp that having a learning problem is not cured by just ‘hard work’ or because of anything they did.) Apparently her friend said to her, “He must have a bad teacher. The teacher should have instilled in him a love for books.” Oh, the insult and the ignorance! Never mind the fact that this child has become “Horrid Henry” crazy since we started reading these books in class (fantastic for 7-9 year-olds, by the way) and has asked his mom to buy these books, then brings them to school to show me AND dressed as Horrid Henry for our recent character dress-up day, the ignorance of that comment shows that people do not understand that reading is HARD WORK for children with Literacy or Language learning problems. He does love books – but he prefers to be read to because it is too hard for him for it to be enjoyable. He avoids written tasks because it is difficult for him, not because he has not been taught to love reading.

After his first week on medication (during which he was not aware that he was taking anything more than a ‘vitamin’) he reported to his mom, “You know, class work was actually fun today!” and again, my heart soared. Because if “my” child had been struggling the whole year, and finally felt more capable, I would support that intervention no matter what my feelings about it were. And for me, the emotional investment paid off. The “fight” was worth it, even though my hands had been tied after the first suggestion of intervention, I continued to bang with my tied wrists and point out the child’s plight. My only fear is that it has been left too late.

With the second boy I have also been advised that there is nothing more I can do. He has incomplete work every day, cannot remember a ‘memory sentence’ which he has the whole week to learn, does not benefit from repeated corrections, does not follow instructions and is also very bright. Unfortunately his marks are not low enough for a wake-up call about a possible repeat. I say unfortunately because while they remain ‘average’ or ‘weak’, his parents are content. I scream silently to myself every day in the face of this underachievement. My daily dilemma is an urge to point out his failings in an effort to move his parents to action, but I have found this counter-productive and am forced to be silent while writing the same impotent comment in his book every day: “incomplete again (sad face) I would really love to see your best work!”

I will never see that boy called back to his Matric Achievers assembly because his parents are content with less than that for him. I am not content, but I do not have the power to change their dreams for him. If I had no emotional deposit in this boy’s life, I could have given up and been light-hearted two terms ago. So, if your child is not achieving and their teacher is hounding you, be thankful! It is hard work to care too much and it would be easier to throw our hands up.

Our school was recently very fortunate to have received a visit from well-known and respected educational leader, Gavin Keller. He is a principal at Sun Valley School in Cape Town and often speaks at Professional Growth courses for teachers and parents. I will share some of his interesting tips (related with my own words and based on my understanding of his message – any errors are mine).

1.      Education needs to have a new look at teaching methods (and for parents, homework methods, seeing as this is your time for ‘teaching’ and learning) because of new understanding about how the brain works (which is the field of NeuroScience).

2.      Finding out whether you or your child are left-brain based, right-brain based, and left or right eye-dominant makes a difference to how one learns.

3.      Girls’ brains light up in both hemispheres – left and right – (showing good communication between them, and thus good functioning) from early years when doing reading. Boys (as a generalisation) do not take to reading as easily and there is brain activity in only one hemisphere, which means it is harder for them to make connections, pick up innuendos, recall details and all the other subtleties one can pick up while reading. This does not mean that boys never learn these skills; it is simply a general statement that, for the first time since brain activity can be observed whilst children are reading, it appears that girls take to this activity with more ease.

It is also during these formative reading years that incorrect handling of boys’ reading abilities can result in lifelong hang-ups. We need to keep boys feeling positive, receiving positive feedback, and not attaching negative feelings to reading.

4.      Similar brain activity happens when girls communicate with each other and we need to create opportunities in class (and at home) for girls to “chat”. Whereas in the classroom we can accommodate one or two minutes of ‘catching up time’ before a lesson, or after a lesson say “now discuss this with your partner”; at home you could consider allowing a homework half-time phone call to a friend, or encourage your girl to
talk through their day with you before you go into homework mode. We are not saying that free chatter during focused work time is now okay; rather that focused work time will be more possible IF girls have the opportunity to purge their chat impulses in a structured manner. It encourages positive feelings of connectedness which girls need in order to perform at their best.

5.      In the same manner, boys NEED movement on a regular basis in order for their brains to function well and keep attention levels up. (ALL children need breaks in their concentration, but boys in particular need movement in regular doses.) Children can concentrate for roughly as many minutes as their age before they need a shift or to be re-directed to their work (i.e. 8 year old = 8 minutes). These ‘breaks’ need not be disruptive or chaotic. A teacher cannot, for example, let her class run around the field every 8 minutes all day long. But creative teachers and parents CAN include non-invasive ‘breaks in concentration’ that keep the lesson/homework moving along smoothly.

For example, after learning a spelling list, write each word three times on a different piece of (scrap) paper, turn each paper into a jet and see which ‘word’ can fly the furthest. Make a sentence with it.

Or after learning the spelling list, go and spell the words to the dog! Or take a ball and as you bounce it, say each letter : R-A-C-E-spells-race (grit your teeth against the bounce!bounce!bounce!)

Or phone your aunty and spell your words to her. Or write the words in the air for your big brother to guess (Mom, pay him to co-operate!) or let your child write the word letter by letter on your back while you guess. The point is, mix it up. If they have been spelling by looking at the words, then writing is a shift (on paper/in fancy pen/on a whiteboard/ on a blackboard/type it on computer/write in the air/on a body). If they have been silently writing, then saying the words is a shift, especially if they are moving as they do it (walking/bouncing/jumping). If they have been talking, then listening is a shift (record your spellings on your phone/you spell the words aloud with errors which your child must identify).

SO it is not a case of “learn your list, then stop doing that and go for a jog around the garden” (although that is fine); it is just that your brain needs a slight change in activity to keep it firing.

In the classroom, movement breaks need to become the norm. We even purchased mini-trampolines for each class after this visit, as jumping is excellent for balance and spatial awareness, and even better for hand-eye co-ordination if you catch a ball while jumping! Boys need the physical movement and girls need to improve their spatial development.

So get creative, add some ZING into homework time, and help your child stay engaged during the ‘boring work’ time which they need to do whether they like it or not. And if you ever hear that Gavin Keller is in town, bounce along to listen!

This month I would like to touch on parent responsiveness. I think that at photo-money collection time in the year I always muse the same frustrated musings about the lack of responsiveness in some parents. (This will happen again next month when we try to get Sponsor envelopes back for our big walk…)

1. If something is due at school, particularly money, please send it as quickly as possible (or at least within the given time limit)
2. If you do not have the photo money, please either send the photos back (there is no shame in this!) or explain in advance why money will be late, eg. “would it be possible to pay after pay day although it falls after the
due  date?” No teacher will think that is an invalid reason and we will appreciate the heads-up.
3. If sponsor money is due and you haven’t collected any, please don’t let us beg until we are beyond frustration. Just send the envelope back empty rather than make empty promises.

My current frustration also comes because we are now in the month of August (at the time of writing this). By now, any interventions and suggested support routes should definitely have been investigated, and should be being implemented if we have a hope of helping with problems during THIS year. I can think of two of my children who are battling so very much, yet resistant parents are optimistically ignoring all previous suggestions and obstinately ‘hoping for the best’. It is worse when a child is in danger of actually failing and parents are resistant, but these two are going to be quieter casualties because they are bright enough to scrape by. However the tragedy is that ‘scraping by’ should never be what these two boys should have to surrender to. One day they will reflect and say “School was so hard for me, it was such a battle and I was always in trouble” as many adults say these days, being from the generation before attention difficulties were diagnosed and treated.

Back to ‘responsiveness’ – the one boy has a problem finishing work, and after months of a lack of support from parents I decided to make incomplete work their problem, seeing as I believe it is fixable. I sent his book home on a Thursday. It came back still untouched, as I was also unable to write a note about finishing the work in his homework book (which was fairly typically missing at the time). We located the homework book on Friday, in which I stapled a sticking-out bookmark type of note asking for photo money and work to be completed. Monday, no one had glimpsed the note or touched the work. Now, fair enough, maybe it is not a habit to check books on weekends, BUT I had put a reminder mark on the boy’s hand (in koki – don’t worry, it washes off, and is a desperate measure!) and had stressed to HIM how he needed to remember to show his parents (he is 8 and capable of remembering, especially when he is landing in hot water each day). But also, with the blatant concerns I have voiced about his progress, which include the words “I am desperate for him and need your support”, one might assume that the mom would pay a little attention to his school bag, ask to see books, ask for extra tips and advice about how to help. It really seems as if he just goes home to his play station every day and no one in the family gives schoolwork a second thought. (Incidentally, when asked to make a sentence with the Phonic word ‘weed’, he is the only child in my 11 years of teaching who used it in a sentence like this : Weed is a bad thing what grown ups smoke…! For real!)

There are two extremes in parents. They are : over-concerned, and on the other side of the spectrum, unsupportive. We teachers take ‘over-concerned’ parents any day of the week, even though they are painful and lots of unnecessary hard work. It is easier to cool down a fanatic than to warm up a corpse, as the church saying goes. Are you being a ‘corpse’ in relation to your child’s progress? I know I spend a fair amount of time asking you to trust the teacher and not over-react to situations, but where a real problem exists, non-responsiveness tells us that you do not have your child’s best interests at heart (whether it is because you are in denial, or opposed to our suggestions, at least remain concerned and in contact.) We can respect a polite difference of opinion if you continue to show interest and strive for ways to improve your child’s progress (even if we believe they are not the most effective ways), but we cannot respect a lack of response.

Perhaps it is time now for you to have an informal check-in with your child’s teacher. And, as a bonus tip, teachers LOVE it when you or your child is responsive to something you have recently taught, for example, by sending a note which says “thank you for that exciting lesson on homophones. Hannah came home and drew up lists of pairs of homophones even though it was not part of homework. She told us about the game you played in class. Thank you for making lessons memorable”. One boy even brought to school an extended list of homophones which his mom had helped him with, and the teacher was the one writing a note of appreciation.

We appreciate responsiveness. It shows we are not striving for nothing and encourages us to go further in our efforts. When ‘comment’ blocks are signed on our children’s booklets, parents mostly compliment their children on neat work or doing well. Few will say “thank you teacher, for compiling, teaching, marking and assessing this work”, but when they do, it makes us happy to keep compiling, teaching, marking and assessing.

This month I would like to touch on the topic of family time and how it affects your child at school. Now, of course, this topic is so broad that I could not begin to address it all here, and I would need the input of a child psychologist or family counsellor to really bring the facts, but there are two recent examples from school life where I can see the benefits and the lack of spending real quality time which affects your child educationally.

The first one is a simple ‘homework’ challenge that we issued to our Grade 2 pupils in whole-grade lessons for Afrikaans. When we teach the vocabulary for ‘Die eetkamer’ (which is The Dining room for you non-Afrikaans readers!), we chat about how families used to eat together in ‘the good old days’ before T.V. and computer games. Nowadays, supper is often a chaotic non-coming-together while mom and dad try to cook, rush through homework, catch up on the day and get the bath/bed routine going amidst the lure of favourite T.V. programmes. Unfortunately the chaos cannot always be avoided with both parents working and evening time being the first time the family gets together after the school day. Not every family has a specific dining room either, and supper is often eaten in the lounge in front of the television. Our challenge was this: on one occasion in the week, eat supper together as a family (in whichever room) but with the T.V. off, and have a conversation about the day.

Sounds simple, but does it happen regularly? Most conversations consist of parents asking all the questions and receiving non-committal answers… “How was your day?” fine. “What did you learn about?” nothing. Firstly, try asking open-ended questions which demand a thought-out answer instead of closed questions, eg. “What was your favourite part of the day and why?” or “what was the most interesting/difficult work you did today?” My own small children have already been conditioned to the routine of naming “best and worst” of the day (even if the 3-year-old’s answers are fictional at times!), they are forming the habit of chatting and reflecting and recalling and participating in daily life. You pay a lot for school fees, you should expect decent feedback from your child! Don’t accept lacklustre information about the bulk of your child’s day, but phrase your conversation so that it does not take the form of a barrage of nagging questions which they will try to duck.

Why? So that you know your child. So that the small amount of time you have with your child in the busy evenings is QUALITY time. So that you will pick up on academic difficulties before the teacher has to tell you about them. So that you can be sensitive to peer problems before a real issue evolves. So that your child knows you are interested. So that your child knows that you have a stake in their academic progress. So that your child knows that the school day is important, and that you do not assume that they just play and waste time all day while the grownups do the real work.

Part of our challenge was for the children to ask these questions of their parents. So many kids are used to being meaninglessly grilled that they do not realise that you have been having a ‘day’ too! They might be able to say “Daddy works at an office”, but what does he DO there? Does he work on a computer? Does he meet with people? Why? What does he say at meetings? Play a question game where each family member has to ask 3 questions of other family members. You might glean some interesting information when you overhear children asking and answering school-related questions of each other, particularly your teens…

Anyway, the Grade 2’s had to ‘prove’ that they completed the challenge by producing a note from a parent in order to receive a sweet. (Young children will move mountains for the simple prize of one sweet or one sticker – remember that when allocating rewards and don’t overshoot your resources!) and every year I hold onto these notes because they have become one of those few tangible rewards in my teaching career. They say “thank you for the wonderful idea”; “we had a delightful meal and I plan to keep this tradition going”; “we practised making polite dinnertime conversation and worked on table manners”; “thank you for good advice”; “I was so surprised when Rachel turned off the T.V. and asked me about my day”; “it was so refreshing to eat with the T.V. off” and “that was such a great time” (actual quotes from this year’s batch of letters). I guarantee such a time for you and your family! Try it!

On this note, Afrikaans is a language which is more widely spoken as a home language than English in South Africa (google it, it’s true!) yet it is often disparaged and called a dying language. Nevertheless it is an examinable subject which your child will need to pass until they are in Grade 12. You may not be brilliant at it, but you CAN support your child’s language learning by 1.) asking them what vocabulary they are learning (as in the setting given in the challenge above) and practising with them, even in a limited capacity; 2.) get them Afrikaans reading books from the library when they are older; 3.) sourcing Afrikaans extra lessons if they need assistance, even in the form of an Afrikaans neighbour or friend who can just help with simple conversing, and 4.) find workbooks such as those at CNA where they can do extra practice, even at a simpler level than where they are working in their Grade, to boost confidence.

And my second point regarding family time, just a short thought, is about school holidays. We have just had three weeks in July where I understand it is very difficult for working parents to manage having their children on holiday while they are not available. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have flexi-time or leave or be non-working. However, I challenge working parents to perhaps take a day or two off during the school holiday if possible, and make it a (short) time that your child will love spending with you – not rushing off to the movies or an anti-social activity where anybody could have taken them, but one of these quality-time type interactions that they will remember having spent with specifically YOU. Build it up as an important occasion. Discuss beforehand what you will do together, let them invest in the planning. When we do news on the first day of term, so many children say “I went nowhere” or “I did nothing”… for three weeks?! Surely not! Even if it’s just that one day, make it a highlight and talk about it afterwards. As cliché’d as it is, talk to your children while they still want to talk to you! Spend time with them while they are still desperate to spend time with you! It really is quality over quantity.

When we do reading for the first time after a long holiday, we can hear who has spent time reading in the holiday and who is ‘rusty’. Don’t let those brains get idle in a holiday. Even working parents can assign some easy ‘tasks’ for the day which can be checked on in less time than you would have spent on homework each evening. Not that I work for CNA, but again, they have cheap workbooks which can keep idle hands busy for fun rewards. Even my 5-year-old loves doing simple counting or tracing letters with sticker books. Small children can be conned into ‘work’ with much praise and making them feel important. Don’t be scared to bring that into the holidays.

This month I would like to pay some attention to Parent Interviews, having just completed a round with my Grade 2 parents.

1.    Be punctual.
When 27 (or more) sets of parents have been scheduled for after-hours time, it really is important to arrive on time and stick to the time allotted, otherwise the other parents will be kept waiting. If you feel you need more time, then make a second appointment, or request a longer time slot from the outset. Interviews are done in our ‘free’ time (admin lessons which are usually for marking or photocopying etc, or after our extra mural commitments) so please do not be late. Each teacher normally has about 3 “no-shows” which means our time has been wasted. The day after a “no-show” we may let you know that you missed your appointment. The only correct way to answer is with a profuse apology and a plea to reschedule. Can you believe that some parents, after missing their appointment, never try to make it up? Bad manners and “African time” are not acceptable.

2.    Do not answer your phone during a parent interview.
We only have your undivided attention for about 15 or 20 minutes. Put your phone on silent or cancel the call. Would you take a call while you were meeting with your doctor? If your answer is yes, then your manners are very poor indeed. Would you be annoyed if the teacher answered her phone during your short time with her?

3.    Come prepared with some knowledge of how your child is coping with homework.
If you are not the person who does the homework, check with that person how your child is doing. Know their strengths and areas that could improve. Ideally you should have some experience of doing homework with your child, even if it is just “spot checks” once or twice a week. Homework is a “necessary evil”. In the early grades especially, homework provides the practice for children to master the necessary mechanical skills so that later they can perform well in literacy and numeracy. The school day is too short to teach and consolidate all the work they need to learn, especially children who need more time than others to learn new concepts. A child is only at school for a third of his waking time. Two thirds of waking time is spent under the nominal control of the home. Therefore good homework habits have to be instilled at home, so that the teacher can get on with teaching the contents of the syllabus.

While we really appreciate when moms AND dads make the effort to come together, it is very often apparent that the mom is the one who sits with homework and is most aware of how the child is coping; but the uninvolved dad will most likely be the one halting the process of support when intervention is necessary. I am sorry to generalise: many dads are wonderfully involved and take an active role in homework. In fact, some provide a welcome change from that ‘female voice’ (teacher and then mom) which seem to ‘nag’ a wayward child. Children often respond that much quicker or more effectively to an authoritative male voice. Dads, I challenge you to be like the many super-dads out there.
However, it IS better for moms and dads to come together if possible. I am most annoyed when (at least once or twice a year) a mom comes in, takes the message home, nothing comes of it; I ask what they have decided upon, then the dad decides he needs more clarity and I end up repeating the whole interview for him, and progress can only begin thereafter.

4.    Prepare yourself for news that your child may not be coping as well as you think.
I have seen too many parents in denial. Pay attention to your child’s test marks that come home. Anything around 50% is NOT GOOD enough in the Foundation Phase! If they only know half the work, then they will not be going forward at all prepared for future learning. Unless they have a learning problem (which must then be identified and supported) or a concentration problem (which must be identified and supported… see previous 2 articles!) or a low learning potential (which needs to be measured, identified and supported), then we should be expecting the very best from your child. If their work has come home with comments such as “Be more careful” or “We need to work on this” or “Watch your spacing” or “I think you can do better” then we may need to chat about how to improve their performance.

One mom, who had been through a personally traumatic time, was so badly hoping not to get bad news in the interview, that I felt awful mentioning possible support routes. She started by saying optimistically that she was sure he had improved, even though his work had shown no signs of improvement. She was so desperate for me to agree that she made it hard for me to tell her the truth, even though I had to. She burst into tears, upon which her husband became defensive. Please have a realistic idea of your child’s potential and progress. These things can be assessed by professionals (educational psychologists) so you do not have to take the teacher’s suspicions as the final word.

Don’t be afraid of assessment, especially if recommended by the teacher. It means she has picked up an area where she is not expert and would appreciate expert help in identifying the best means of helping. (See previous article on “interventions”). I have another mom in denial who is in for a nasty shock when she receives the June report. We had an unsuccessful early interview where I strongly recommended medication for a very apparent concentration problem. She opted for herbal remedies instead, and in every piece of work sent home (books and portfolio) where we asked for a comment, she has optimistically commented “I see an improvement”… where there have been no signs thereof! In fact, his marks have deteriorated to the point of failing. He may have made small improvements, BUT the standard of work has increased so much from Term 1 to Term 2, that he still fails to meet the criteria (by ever-increasing margins). Denial only stalls progress. Acceptance (though difficult and painful) brings about improvement. Get there as fast as you can.

5.    Divorced parents need to put their issues with each other aside and put their child’s growth and progress first.
We do appreciate being filled in on a child’s situation, especially where a divorce has not been amicable, but please do not use interview time to spouse-bash (especially if we are doing separate interviews!) Divorce affects a child in ways we may not even be aware of (eg. Maths can be affected because it is very confidence-based, and a child’s self-confidence can take a knock with the insecurity that comes about with a divorce.) Please be open to taking your child to see a therapist or counsellor, possibly even at recurrent intervals. Issues arising from divorce, remarriage, birth of step or half-siblings, may occur over years and not be ‘dealt with’ in one swoop of a visit to a psychologist. The best thing you can do for your child is to get along with their other parent, at least enough to put on a united front and be able to communicate with the fellow parent openly and agree on steps of intervention.

Most of all, look forward to the time you have with your child’s teacher. Take her advice, ask questions, assume the best of this person who spends an important part of your child’s day imparting her knowledge and life lessons. Get on her side, even if you think she has not given you the ‘good news’ you so wanted to hear. If you heed the suggestions she makes, you may be hearing ‘good news’ in years to come. Bad news does not go away on its own. Best wishes!

Right, so a blind trial is done. IF the child is not bright enough, ie. they are struggling because their IQ is low, not because they cannot focus, then a drug like Ritalin will make NO difference. It cannot enhance brain ability. I have seen trials done in my own class where I knew the result would not be Day/Night at all, but in the interest of the child, we had to rule out the possibility that he lacked concentration. To me, this is sadder news to give to a parent than if the child has ADD. In effect, if medication cannot help, then the child is doomed to struggle through school depending heavily on hard work in remedial lessons and plenty of extra homework, only to scrape a pass each year if he has been lucky. It is far more promising to be able to say, “yes, he has been underachieving, but we know why, and YES we can fix it”. I always wonder if a child born with poor eyesight would be denied glasses.

But ahhh – the glasses do not have those pesky and apparently life-threatening side effects, they say. I recently fetched the slip of paper from inside a Disprin box… “prolonged use of high doses may lead to anaemia, blood dycrasias, gastro-intestinal haemorrhage, peptic ulceration and renal papillary necrosis” were amongst other very scary-sounding possibilities. Yet people pop headache tablets, indigestion tablets, cold and flu medication, all without blinking an eye because it was prescribed by a doctor or because we trust in the ‘fix’ and the likelihood of scary side-effects is negligible. Do you believe that a doctor would prescribe drugs to your child that is harmful?

Occasionally one of these drugs does have a negative reaction, such as weepiness or a too-high dosage causes a zombie-like state. Then either the medication is not right for that child or the dosage needs to be altered. Speaking for myself, I am not happy when one of my medicated children is too quiet or withdrawn, and I question the dosage with the parents. On the other hand, children that were diagnosed and medicated in a previous year often need to have their dosage looked at for possible increase when their body mass grows to the point of rendering the drug not as effective. I had a case last term where the little boy, who had shown remarkable improvement last year after starting Ritalin, dragged behind in task completion the whole term, becoming despondent and negative about work because he could never finish in time. I had to constantly be “on his case” trying to hurry him even though he was on his Ritalin. It was a simple case of needing a dosage increase, and as soon as this happened, his task completion came right, as did his work attitude… and hence self esteem and confidence and all the other vital life skills that small children are learning about themselves based on the feedback they get about their performance and abilities.

I had one mom last year, highly defensive about her child’s chronic lack of focus, adamant that her mother-voice of positive reinforcement would be strong enough to keep his self esteem intact despite his poor performance. Unfortunately she does not realise that even though there is no audible voice saying “you can’t do it; you are not capable enough” (although in some terrible classrooms, there might be!) he will receive that message through every poor performance on every test and through every time his teacher has to re-direct him to his task, and through every time his friend says “how did you do on your test?” and his mark is less than the average. No one has to tell kids that they are struggling. They feel when they are not coping, even if they can’t put it into those words. That is when the ‘tummy aches’ and “I don’t like school’s” start happening. Parents in denial then blame the teacher and grab onto all manner of reasons for their children’s struggle – the class bully, a personality clash with a teacher, unfair harsh treatment that they wish to complain about, the child’s friends are being nasty to her, etc.

Yes, there are possible side effects to these drugs. The most frequent one we see is lack of appetite. Parents get very ‘freaked out’ when the lunch box returns home every day untouched. However, if the child has a good breakfast before taking his tablet, and eats lunch after school when the drug is out of his system (yes, it is a temporary effect)then missing his snack at break time should not have an impact on physical growth. This is also why the paediatrician monitors and reviews children on medication. If any negative effects are picked up, one would obviously stop and try a different type.
People who don’t believe in medication need to then find some sort of strategy to support their ADD or ADHD child. Some try diet – cutting out all sugars and preservatives, which has limited success and is not a cure, but in general is a good idea for all children to some extent. I personally do not see why people should suffer through a fixable problem where the solution will most likely not have a negative effect, and if it does, a different solution can be tried.

Just last month I saw a mom about her very obviously hyperactive child (not that the behaviour was my driving concern, seeing as I find him charming and can manage his outbursts and impulsivity easily) but it was his obvious underachievement that was the greatest concern. Before the interview I had a glaring headache. I could either continue with the headache, not giving her my best attention because I was distracted by the dull ache in my head, or pop a pill and give her my full energy, the latter of which I did. When I used this as a pro-medication example, she said, “Really, did you take a tablet? I just wasn’t raised that way” as if it was an indictment on my moral character! Incidentally, this boy was moved to my school after she received the same message from his last school, which she didn’t like. Parents often think they can run away from a concentration problem. Within the first 2 weeks I had him in Remedial lessons and noted to her that I was concerned about his ability to concentrate, and this was before I received any records from his former school. Of course, when his file came, it said “inattentive, easily distracted, aggressive, needs intervention, mom unsupportive”. She went on to tell me about her other son who also was on Ritalin, but she had taken him off and he was doing so well. I bumped into her this week and she moaned about having to buy a new uniform because the older son was moving schools… I have a feeling that these poor boys may be moving schools each time mom hears unwanted news.

In this particular case, too, the teacher, the Occupational Therapist, the educational psychologist, and the previous school all said they feel this boy has a concentration problem which needs to be diagnosed by a doctor. So under all this pressure the mom took the boy to the doctor and filled out the forms to indicate that he has no concentration problem. Therefore he cannot be diagnosed as ADD or ADHD because her scores and my scores do not match. The doctor herself found inattention problems in her independent assessment, yet still that mom is in denial. What can I do? Fight for him? In the past I have fought and fought, bringing childrens’ poor performance to parents’ attention and being ‘in their faces’ all year long until they rage against teachers who just ‘want all children on medication’ and tell all their friends and family how lazy the teachers at my school are. These days I am tempted to throw up my hands after one solid attempt. Yet I know I can’t because I have SEEN medication work wonders. I know how this child’s year can possibly be transformed. It has got nothing to do with me having a more pleasant, easier, more harmonious year, although the rest of the class would certainly benefit from that. To me, the risk is SO worth it.

Almost all ‘medication’ conversations start with parents being negative or apprehensive. They either dig their heels in and stick to their beliefs, no matter how misguided or based on hearsay or the internet they are(where anybody can write anything without being an actual doctor) or they decide to put their fears aside long enough to TRY this possible solution. It may not work, but then you can at least say in good conscience that you have tried EVERYTHING for your child’s progress. Hanging onto fear IN CASE something bad happens does not make sense when a child’s progress IS suffering and bad things ARE happening to their self esteem. In my professional opinion, if my own child showed any signs of struggle with academics, even if her progress was just average but I suspected she is brighter than that, I would not hesitate to get that Ritalin script as fast as I could and watch in eager anticipation for positive changes, and I would be relieved that something could help.

Welcome back to the medication debate: for or against? Two articles ago we looked at the various interventions that pupils may need, and last month we honed in on a common, contentious one : inattention and concentration issues. Please refer to these previous two articles for some background as they provide the context for this discussion. One should not make decisions about medication without looking at the whole picture.

When it comes to medicating for concentration, in my experience, the score is generally Teachers = For; Parents = Against. Both have good reasons. There are, of course, many exceptions to this generalisation, but I will discuss it from this mindset. I am well aware that many will disagree with my views, but I have seen strong opinions change plenty of times over the years, so please read with an open mind.

The generalisation of teachers being pro-medication comes about because we have seen it work. The generalisation of parents being anti-medication comes about because 1) they fear that teachers resort to medicating to avoid the ‘harder’ work of dealing with struggling children; 2) they are in denial that there is a problem; 3) they are against using medication in general, eg. even headache tablets are avoided, and 4) they have read  horrible stories about the side effects of medication, usually on the internet.

Let me also be more specific about medication : I am referring to scheduled scripted medication which can only be administered by a doctor, not over-the-counter. I am not including herbal or natural medication because (a) many herbal medications have had less testing done than scheduled medication and some even lack the components to be accepted as a scheduled drug and so remain ‘natural’, whereas a drug like Ritalin has had 40 years of research. Just because a drug says ‘herbal’ does not mean it is harmless. And (b) I have yet to witness a herbal drug being half as effective as a scheduled drug. On a few isolated occasions in my eleven years, a herbal medicine has made a noticeable difference in a struggling child’s progress, and even then, it is never the same one that we can recommend because every child responds differently to different herbal remedies. If we had plenty of time we could experiment with various herbal sources for 10 weeks at a stretch and measure progress. Unfortunately, wasting a term at a time trying different alternate remedies does not help the child in the long run. If a scheduled drug IS going to help them, the results are visible immediately. So teachers are not anti-herbal medication in principle, but they might be hesitant in practice. Often we are forced to let parents run the gauntlet of experimenting until they see no fast and effective improvement and then resort to trying doctor-prescribed medicine, but by then it is sometimes too late to have nipped the problem in the bud.

Let me address some issues point by point:

Teachers have seen medication work WHEN it is right for that child. When I say medication I mean Ritalin, Retafen, Concerta, Strattera, Tofranol and such stimulants. We have also seen it NOT work when it is not right for that child. The proper way to test these drugs is to do a blind trial, wherein the child takes a placebo for 2 weeks and the drug for 2 weeks. Neither the teacher nor the parent knows which 2 weeks is the placebo and after the 4 weeks, the teacher sends in her forms containing comments and ratings of progress and behaviour. From these forms there should be a decisive showing of which was the placebo. Only then will the pharmacist say which was Tablet A and Tablet B. If the difference between the two was not what they call “Day/Night” then there is not enough motivation to put the child on that medication. Sometimes, however, changes are harder to see, for example in the case of a child with attention deficit, but not hyperactivity. Then one might do a trial period of medication to see if progress improves (task completion, fewer careless errors etc) because there may be no visible difference in their behaviour. Some ADD (attention deficit disorder) children APPEAR to be busy and not day-dreaming but their minds are not focussed on their work. In ADHD children, medication trials often show Jekyll and Hyde behaviour. Unless the behaviour is chronic or disrupting the class so much so that lessons are affected, behaviour alone is not reason enough to medicate a child. A child’s progress may also not improve overall in a day/night manner because they may have such a backlog that they will still need much time to catch up. eg. going onto Ritalin will not suddenly teach them all the Spelling and Phonics sounds that they missed out on while they were not able to concentrate, but if they try the medication, all the new work learned should stick a lot better, and they have a better chance of catching up in remedial lessons now that they can concentrate. Putting an ADD child in remedial alone will not solve the problem because they will still not be able to retain the lessons. So a positive trial may still not mean a sudden leap in progress, so don’t leave it too late while a backlog builds up.

Often a teacher can see that Ritalin is being effective, even if the Spelling is still weak from months/years of inattention, in the handwriting and spatial organisation on a page. Not that the goal is ever ‘prettiness’ but a more organised page with more consistent handwriting is a good indicator of the mess being sorted out in the brain. I have photostated ‘before’ and ‘after’ copies of childrens’ work when on Ritalin, just to show that seeing is believing.

I do agree that teachers can be lazy in not wanting to deal with ‘naughty’ children, and so too many children are medicated instead of managed. However, much ADHD behaviour looks exactly like naughty behaviour because of the lack of impulse control in these children. They fiddle, shout out, walk about, get into fights, cause accidents, cannot work quietly or productively, and so are often confused with genuinely naughty children who COULD control themselves if they had the inclination or if they had been taught better social skills by their parents. Many ADHD children have begun to suffer from being labelled ‘naughty’ by other kids, and being constantly blamed when trouble arises. Some are so relieved when their behaviour can be modified by a tablet and their self-esteem can be restored. Little children especially say things like “I knew I was good” and beam with pride at the end of a school day where their teacher praised them instead of reprimanded them. Those that have never run a classroom will chorus in with “Maybe if the teacher tried positive reinforcement from the beginning instead of reprimands, the effect would have been the same”… Friends, all teachers started off with the same idealistic thought. Perhaps we even revisited that thought after a motivational speaker or course challenged us to feel that same passion for finding the best in every child that we felt when we started our careers. We DO believe in finding the best in every child. We DO try to praise where we can. But positive reinforcement alone will not defeat a disorder. And the reality of running a class of nearly 30 children makes it a near-impossible task to devote only positive energy into those going against the flow of a smooth-functioning classroom.