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Wednesday, September 13, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Commentary...
Empowering students helps them to learn
and discovered that dancing
the letters helped her learn
them. Pretending she had
paint on her feet, she wrote
her name on the ground.
Shaping her body into letters
imprinted them on her mem-
ory. It wasn’t long before we
moved past this challenge and
she was reading on her own.
As a high school student
one of our sons was hav-
ing difficulty with advanced
algebra. When given the
opportunity to drop back to a
lower level of the subject he
responded that he’d rather get
a C from the instructor teach-
ing the advanced class than an
A from the one teaching the
regular class. We accepted his
appraisal and applauded his
resiliency and tenacity. I don’t
remember his grade, however
it did not prevent him from
getting into the college of his
choice.
I encourage parents to
identify their own biases.
We parents all have biases.
These are usually unconscious
thoughts that often direct how
we react and respond to the
things our kids do or don’t
do. Since these are hard to
identify, asking a friend or a
spouse to help recognize our
tone of interactions with each
child (whether its positive or
negative) and what kind of
By Edie Jones
Correspondent
As the school year gets
underway in Sisters, parents
are eager to help their stu-
dents have the best possible
experience. How that plays
out through the year greatly
depends on what takes place
in the opening weeks of the
school year.
One of the most important
aspects of learning is for stu-
dents to feel empowered and
important. I’d like to suggest
some strategies for parents
that will help develop these
perceptions.
First, I feel it’s impor-
tant to have a strength-based
approach to learning. When
students only hear about
what they don’t do well, their
desire to learn will quickly
disappear. Instead of looking
at what’s not happening, sup-
porting a child by looking at
their strengths, aptitudes and
interests, helping them relate
these to what the teacher is
having them work on can
make a huge difference.
When one of our daugh-
ters was in the first grade she
was having great difficulty
learning the alphabet. She
had always loved books so it
wasn’t a lack of exposure that
hindered her. I experimented
feedback we give (specific
and concrete or general and/
or dismissive) can make a big
difference on how empowered
each child will feel.
A third suggestion is for
parents to become a “warm
demander.” This means to
hold high expectations for all
kids and to believe in their
potential for growth. Numer-
ous studies indicate that when
kids know that adults have
high expectations for them
their motivation increases
and they achieve more. It is
important to guard against
students falling into perceived
expectations and biases that
hamper their learning. Be
sure they know you believe in
them and support their efforts
to achieve. At the same time
be mindful of piling on expec-
tations that create stress.
As you, the parent, engage
with teachers encourage as
many student-centered learn-
ing experiences as possible.
Even kindergartners and ele-
mentary-school-aged kids can
get excited about learning that
is presented in project-based
learning, cooperative learning,
and service learning. All of
these help create a community
environment, providing mean-
ingful roles of leadership and
focusing on performance out-
comes instead of reinforcing
the need for good grades.
Here in Sisters we hear of
many learning experiences
that fall into the above cate-
gory. A wonderful example is
shown in “Journey’s Flight”
and the students’ involvement
in writing the story of a but-
terfly’s adventure. The prof-
its from the sale of this book
will be donated to maintain
the monarch butterfly garden
built by Sisters Middle School
students.
The Seed to Table collabo-
ration with the school system;
Sisters High School students
going to Seattle to study can-
cer; traveling to Nepal with
Ten Friends; and becoming
counselors at outdoor school
are marvelous examples of
how this teaching concept
is played out in our school
system.
Equally important in help-
ing students feel empowered
about their learning is ongo-
ing and active reflection by
them of how they are doing.
Establishing personally rel-
evant learning goals and
actively engaging in ongo-
ing self-assessment develops
habits for a lifetime. When a
young child is having trou-
ble making friends, helping
them learn skills builds an
understanding of appropri-
ate social behavior. Helping
a third-grader who is having
difficulty with spelling fig-
ure out his best learning style
(visual, audio, physical or a
combination) may be the key
to success. Equally impor-
tant are efforts to help older
students look at how they
are doing, analyzing what’s
behind successes and classes
not going as well.
Research shows that indi-
viduals who demonstrate
enthusiasm, kindness, focus,
calmness, and openness enjoy
more power in their social
circle. Helping students learn
to focus on others will inad-
vertently build their feelings
of power.
If our goal is to have happy,
engaged students excited
about learning, we need to
help them feel like they have
personal power. Take time
as a parent, or the friend of a
young person, to really get to
know them and use that infor-
mation to encourage them to
feel excited about the year
ahead.
This article was inspired by
ideas presented in the article,
“How to Help Students Feel
Powerful at School,” by Amy
L. Eva, Ph. D, education con-
tent specialist at the Greater
Good Science Center, printed
online in PrintBookmark,
February 22, 2017.
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