Why volunteering at your kid's school does not make her smarter
slate.com
slate.com
Pretend you have two clients: One that actively engages in the process and gives you feedback and responds to questions, and one that crosses their arms, never gets back to you with answers to questions and says "just give me what I want when I want it".
Which would you be happier to work with? Which do you think would be more forgiving if there's a problem? Which would you work with again?
My wife and I volunteer heavily at our childrens' school. From my experience teachers know, consciously or subconsciously, which families care about their kids' performance in school and which families acknowledge the teachers as people and not automatons that turn tax dollars into educated children.
When that day comes where your child is struggling and the teacher is making a decision in their head to try one more time or just give up for the day, I'd rather they opt for the former and not the latter. It happens and I've seen it first hand.
If what you say is true, why doesn't it appear in the data?
The children of parents who are more involved in school activities, like parent-teacher meetings or volunteering in the school, also show poorer reading performance. This is probably because parents of children who are having behavioural difficulties or who are progressing slowly in school are more likely to call the teacher to seek ways to improve their child’s performance, or to receive a call from the teacher to discuss the child’s school work. Similarly, parents of low-achieving students are more likely to seek further engagement with the school to find ways to improve their child’s progress or behaviour. This is indeed a good strategy: other research with longitudinal data highlights how more parental involvement in the school improves children’s performance because teachers may pay more attention to children of involved parents, and school may become more important to children if they see that their parents are also invested in their progress (Pomerantz et al.,2007) (Table 3.1b).
So I would say that Slate somewhat misrepresented the data.
Your comment seems very dismissive but only offers anecdotal evidence that the article is directly addressing. In your example, it seems equally likely that a teacher who knows the parent(s) will help a child practice areas of deficiency at home would not "give up for the day". If you were to ask me, it seems more futile to spend extra time helping a child if I know they aren't going to be in an environment that fosters learning just because their parent helped cut out bingo cards.
You ask both clients specific questions related to the project, some of which require them to do research and investigate which solution they want. You also ask them to participate in the ping-pong tournament and the restocking of the sodas.
Client 1 answers the project-related questions fully, but not the others, and complains that you should pay someone to stock the sodas from the fees they pay you. Client 2 does the social-related tasks and as a result spends less time working on resolving the project-related questions.
Which project do you think will be more successful?
Now for the hard part - which client will be happier with the result? In the latter, they know more about the developers, are more likely to be friends with the developers, and know how hard the developers worked, so might be lenient with subpar results. While the former is more likely to be mad if the results aren't as good as expected.
The thesis is that your time is better spent teaching your kid at home than volunteering heavily at the schools. If you spend, what, 5 hours per week at school? That's an extra hour of at-home teaching you could spend with your children. Probably more, because there's less travel overhead. What teacher would say that such a family does not care about their kids' performance in school?
The thesis is the teacher would send you information about how your child is struggling, along with advice on what you could do to help at home, rather than this indirect approach you prefer, where the teacher uses the proxy information of your physical involvement at school as encouragement for trying harder with a student.
This makes the assumption that time spent at school is also the same time you would be available to help with studies at home. But most volunteering at school is during school hours (while your child is also at school) and is not mutually exclusive to you also helping with studies at home, after school.
I submit that it's uncommon for both parents have free time during school hours, and also have free time at home in the evening to help with studies. When do the parents work?
I suspect that if anything the parents of the second group think more highly of teachers: the teachers who are not positively incompetent are teaching their children something that the parents likely cannot. The parents of the first group often think that in many cases they know better than the teachers. Some such parents--not, that I know of, my neighbors--regard the teachers as servants to be kept in order.
So I think that as a proxy for respect, volunteering has its drawbacks.
It seems simple to me, and covers all the points that any of the education studies from the past decade or so mention, but it's rare.
There is the decoding (the ability to say a word that is written) and the understanding. Decoding is easier for most children, and they can decode sooner most words before they have understanding of those words.
So, teaching a child to read may not be as important as just reading to them. Reading to them allows them to build up a larger vocabulary, and allows them to give meaning to decoded words.
Putting this in the context of parent volunteers in schools: it's easy to see that a parent may be pronouncing the phonic sounds incorrectly, or may be subverting the techniques (moving to a look and say technique), or just generally adding some sub-optimal hints and shades.
I don't know about the HN population but methods for math have changed quite a lot. I'm re-learning so that I can help my son. There are very many innovations.
And there it is, folks!
It's an interesting contrast to yesterday's postings wherein I've seen comments from a former member of a board of education, and a teacher involved in a teacher's union. That there seems to be this expectation in America to leave education up to the professionals (state-certified teachers).
There's a stigma attached to home-schooling, as it is highly associated with religious fundamentalists indoctrinating kids, and further, parents might "mess up" their children's education.
This phenomena is thoroughly explored in John Taylor Gatto's book, "Underground History of American Education." In the 1800s, children were taught to read at home. The push towards compulsory education, however, somehow convinced the American public that parents are no longer good enough to teach their kids.
That is crazy.
Coming from an Asian family, this notion would have been absurd. It isn't about who is "qualified" to teach something, and more about gaining competitive advantages. (Now, Asian family dynamics have their own shadow-sides too).
Having gone to public school, I can see why people home school their children. I did not home school mine but I did augment her learning with teachings at home.
My wife was educated in Poland, and school is a lot different there, like the article points out. One thing about here though that is better is that there is so much other than school going on, like the sports, music, drama, and art. They also have clubs that meet there. The main fundraiser is like a carnival, again no help in education at all, but the kids like it. Whatever, my view is until uni as long as there was good enough preparation in math and writing, the smart kids will do fine anyway, so people should not stress so much.
It also helps build a community. Volunteering in your kid's class along with other parents is a good way to get to know the families you and your child will be sharing space with for 9 months.
The underlying premise appears to be that parents volunteer to improve their kids' intelligence (eg, grades). Nowhere is this premise discussed, proven, or cited - it's just taken as a given.
The author then goes on to suggest that there are much better things you can do as a parent to improve academic performance.
I accept this, but it's meaningless if he doesn't at least show that someone has demonstrated a significant correlation between parental volunteering and the intention of improving academic performance.
As a parent of a not-quite-school-age child, I will likely volunteer to some limited extent - but I will do it so that I can better know the people who are monitoring and teaching my child for a significant part of every year.
The author also conflates PTA meetings, volunteering, and fundraising - treating them as if they were all the same thing.
Clickbait article without substance is clickbait.
http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Kids-World-They-That/dp/14516...
Because phoning other parents for money or collecting tickets at the fall fair moon bounce just screams "I value education!"
I volunteered because they asked. Once at least I did not volunteer, my wife volunteered me.
It seems to me that a lot of "education" money in the US is spent on things that benefit students, yet that benefit is indirect and could be done by more efficiently by other agencies.
Lunch programs, nurses, athletics, and bus service come to mind. A welfare state with less hungry kids, universal healthcare, good parks, and good public transportation doesn't need to have schools pay for all of the above and more.
I don't think anyone is complaining about working parents in poor school districts being overly involved. It is in those districts where we need the most improvement.
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2003/02/01/takin...