My first memory of my mother trying to teach me academically oriented subjects was indeed a tad bit scary. Trust me I was a smart student, I always scored pretty good grades and now when I think of it, my mind was moulded by my mum to study or lose my summer camp. Well, I always managed to go on that holiday with my friends, which was disguised as the summer camp. Anyways, I recollect those moments fondly with a positive nostalgia associated with it. The point I am trying to make is that parents often try to incentivise the child to study; it worked on me, although, it may not always be the best way.
Well! Come to think of it, my mum’s way was far better than the way my dad made me study at home. My dad was pretty impatient when it came to teaching my siblings and me anything. A few wrong answers and he would lose his mind. He would sometimes shout and the other times he would just end our playing time. My dad is an excellent teacher though, but I would rather learn philosophy and life lessons from him and not the academic subjects. When it comes to teaching from the books, it takes a whole lot of patience which I know he does not have. I believe a lot of working parents may not have the patience required to gather their sanity and teach their children at home; however, there could be some pre-planned approach that may be helpful.
Each parent is a working parent and the lockdown situation has made everyone a ‘work from home’ and ‘work for home’ parent as well. We believed that working from home will probably be the best thing ever, I am sure most of you have started thinking otherwise. I don’t believe my own words when I say; “I miss my office desk”. Don’t quote me on this please! For parents who are working from home, with children at home, am sure their responsibility has increased a hundred fold. You have got to do your work, plus you have to keep your child engaged. With online learning becoming a norm for more than a year now, everyone has realized the importance of teaching your child at home. Certainly, the lockdown situation is getting better, but the lessons are to be held for life. One big lesson being; be equipped enough to be able to teach your child the academic subjects at home.
Everyone has their own unique way and yes - you know your child the best. However, the education system works efficiently because everyone is taught in a similar manner. Hence, we at Champs Learning have thought of a few structured ways in which the parents could educate their child/children efficiently at home. Let’s look at a few ideas. We would love to hear more from you.
Creating a fixed timetable:
Just like in schools, a fixed timetable can be created by parents at home. Life becomes easier for both the parent and the child, if all know what is to be studied and when. Plus, you can totally customise it to make your child feel happy about it. Rather than let your children decide for themselves how they want to schedule their studies. Let them decide their Netflix and play time after school, let the child decide his/her ‘hanging out with friends’ time. This will not only make them more comfortable and happy about studying, but it also gives them a sense of responsibility. It’s a bonus that you don’t have to micromanage them on this aspect! Once the plan is set, it becomes easier for you too. As you know well in advance what subject you will be handling and you can prepare yourself accordingly. A happy child is always more focused academically, so it’s a win-win situation.
Make it interesting:
As a parent, you can always use this time to bond with your child. Make this study time fun by teaching in a way that will be different from the way a child learns at schools and educational institutes. Of course, you can use the regular ‘notebook, textbook and pencil’ way, but similar studying pattern can end up becoming too monotonous and disinteresting. Choose an interesting location, like go to a garden to study, maybe even a café. Study over an ice cream. Does that sound fun to you? Well! Why not? You should also be enjoying teaching as much as the child should enjoy learning it.
Change the study material:
Textbook teaching of course is extremely important , after all that is what is going to be taught in school and that is what is going to be tested in the exams. Nonetheless, is it essential for you to use the textbook all of the time? Maybe not. There is a lot of study material online, especially on You Tube. Search for a topic and you will find hundreds of videos on it, each one better than the other. You can use that sometimes. Not 100% of the time, but you can always interchange and experiment. Audio visuals always register better in the brain and are better to recollect and fall back upon.
I wish that You Tube existed when I was in school!!
Time to bust a Myth!
Most parents believe that its extremely important for them to completely know the lesson before they are teaching their child. Parents often think that they need to be fully knowledgeable before they start taking a particular lesson. Well no! That is not exactly true. It`s totally impossible, for working parents to know for example - the formula for determining the atomic mass of a material or know basically anything about Trigonometry! What is important however, is that you are open to understanding it while helping your child to understand. Teaching has presumably been done by the teachers in schools, what you have to do as a parent is help the child assimilate that information. You need to aid the learning process and when required, understand the topic and explain it so it makes sense to them.
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