Teaching & Education Beliefs: Where They Come From

A teacher’s beliefs about education have a direct impact on their teaching style. They form their beliefs from 5 main sources: their own experiences as students, their teachers (in the school or in higher education), their parents, the media, and the experiences of others around them.

I do not remember much of what went on when I was in school. I was a very sick child and was constantly on medication. I missed many school days so I could visit various doctors. My teachers were not very understanding and I became what is known as a “special education kid with behavior problems”. If ADHD was as famous 40 years ago as it is now, I would have been diagnosed with ADHD. You will be glad to know that I did not have ADHD. Nor do many of children who are diagnosed with it today. Never the less, my own experiences with school taught me to consider kids in a holistic way rather than just kids that I needed to instill knowledge into.

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National Teacher Appreciation Day

National Teacher Appreciation Day was this week on May 7 2013. This is a wonderful idea. Teachers deserve much more appreciation than they currently receive.

Teaching and education are the tool and the outcome in a student’s life. Much like the artist uses a brush to paint. The teacher is the artist, teaching is the brush and education is the finished canvas.

Teaching has been my journey for the last 27 years. I am not a school teacher any more but I still consider myself an educator. I teach, I coach, I present, I motivate, I do public speaking, I write, I do community work and in all those things I educate kids and grownups to find the gift they have inside let it shine.

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How to Choose the Best School for Your Kids: Questions to Consider

To find the school that best fits you and your child, and make sure you get the highest return on one of the biggest investments of your life, there are some things to think about. You need to consider how each of the factors or school characteristics influences your child’s education and success.

Here are some tips of what to consider when trying determining your formula for finding the best school. These will improve the chances of your investment being a success. They are in no particular order.

School Size

The size of the school needs to match your kid’s personality. Big schools have more programs, more enrichment, and more options in teaching. But there is always a risk that your child will get lost in the hustle and bustle. Check out the school, go meet the principal, talk to parents. Often, parents choose little schools because they want their child to get personal attention. The principal knows the children by name and the school has a personal touch. My children went primary school with over 1600 kids in it. The principal knew all the kids’ names, their parents’ names, their parent’s professions and what their hobbies were. It is possible to get a big school with a personal touch. This was good for my kids. Other parents who went to the exact same schools felt that their child was just a number in such a big school. It was not for them.

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How to Choose the Best School for Your Kids: The Formula

As parents, our choice of appropriate school for our kids needs to be revaluated every year. If a child is spends up to 13 years at school, we should be re-evaluating our choice at least 13 times.

Unfortunately, some people just send their kids to the closest school. Sometimes, it is the only school available and in fact, they do not really have much of a choice. The majority of parents believe they should make schooling choices about two or three times. Depending on the structure of the education system, parents make choices about day care/ kindergarten, primary school, and middle school/high school. Some parents even consider this question only once and decide to send their kid to a college (which goes from kindergarten to Grade 12).

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How to Choose the Best School for Your Kids: Return on Investment

Education is one of the most important investments in life (followed closely by investing in relationships). Many people around the world spend a fortune on a good school for their kids. Sadly, this fortune is often wasted and they end up blaming their children for not making the most out of the opportunity they were given. It is similar to investing in the share market or in property, you find a lousy house or buy very shaky shares and complain when they do not increase in value.

Children spend the majority of their most valuable childhood years in educational institutions. Think about it this way: out of 7 days a week, 5 of them are dedicated to schooling. If the kids are also stimulated in other ways, they may even spend some of their weekends in educational endeavors.

Much like other investments, the decision whether to invest or not, and in what to invest depends on the potential return. If the return is high, it is considered a good investment. If the return is low, it is not a very good investment, and if there is likely to be a loss, it is a terrible investment.

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42 Best Marriage Quotes that Will Change Your Life

Mature married couple embracing on a couch

I love quotes. I have them spread in every corner of my house and I also like relationship and marriage quotes.

You must be asking yourself, “Why do we need marriage quotes?”

Because marriage can be hard. Not dramatically hard… just quietly, everyday hard. It’s not what it used to be, or maybe it’s just not what we thought it would be.

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Hyperactive Kids

Over many years of work, I have seen many kids whose parents claimed they had ADD (Attention Deficit disorder) and/or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and wanted to know what I thought about giving them Ritalin.

Luckily, I am not a doctor and I do not need to prescribe medication to kids, but when parents want my opinion, I usually say, “Try as many other things as you can before you consider Ritalin”.

In fact, this happened to me again recently.

Luke is a 6-year-old boy who came to see me because he was diagnosed with (are you sitting down?) ADD, ADHD, autism, Asperger Syndrome, ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). The doctor was pushing the parents hard to put him on Ritalin, but his mom did not like the idea. She changed his diet and said there was a significant improvement at first, but felt that after 6 months of a strict diet, the effects had worn off and he was becoming more agitated and getting into trouble at school again.

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Disable Kids Dancing

This is a story of integration that works. It is about how beliefs are stronger than physical limitations, mental disabilities and social prejudice. It may also be about how you parent your kids, if you so choose.

One particular aspect of integration is that of kids who may be from a similar background to the general school population, but are different in some special way – they may be blind, hard of hearing, physically disabled or suffering from some mental disorder. Many school systems have spent enormous efforts creating special schools for these kids, then “integrating” them into the “normal” schools, then separating them again, then bringing them back, but their existence is certainly an ongoing discomfort to any system.

At Noff’s school, special kids abound. There are kids wheeling around the school on motorized wheelchairs, walking with difficulty using walking frames, having difficulties hearing, seeing and communicating. Some of these kids are so limited they need to be fed and, well, wiped clean.

But recently, I had a chance to see them dance!

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Telling Parents the Truth (2)

Although I understand the problems with telling parents the truth about their kids, I believe that not telling causes more problems. When I talk to people who disagree with me, their main argument is “Parents do not want to know”, but I know that whenever I presented “bad” news in a “good” way, parents considered me a savior.

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Telling Parents the Truth (1)

Telling parents their child has a problem is not an easy task. Do you tell parents their child has a difficulty and risk that the label is going to be hard to remove, or follow the parents’ desire to believe their child will “grow out of it” and find out in Grade 6 that the kid is unable to read a single word?

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