Shocked and Amused

A teacher's take on parenting advice...

So, I was rifling through the "parenting" section of the self-help books stall at a market last week. After all, if I am intending on writing an education blog for parents, I better check out my paper-based competition so-to-speak. Well I can say that I was left somewhere between shocked and amused.

I saw “The Challenging Child” with the tagline, “As parents, we are not the cause…”. The cover of “The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems” caught my eye with its photo of a hip cap-wearing baby. I came across “Kid Wrangling”, “100 Ways to Calm the Crying” and “Mother Mysteries” in amongst other so-called ‘women’s issues’ books like “There’s More To Life Than Sex And Money”, “Dream It: Do It”, “Calm For Life”, “Are Men Necessary”, “Taming Your Alpha Bitch”  and “Sometimes Hearts Have To Break” (let's not even mention "A Parent's Guide To Preventing Homosexuality").

By contrast, ‘books for blokes’ included “How To Get Rich”, “Apprentice to Business Ace”, “Man Maintenance” along with “The Everything Beer Book” and “Official Rules of Card Games”. By this stage I’m feeling slightly depressed at the calibre of information available to parents. Not to pass judgment on the quality of the abovementioned books, nor am I commenting on self-help-type books generally. However, where’s the information for parents about how to help their struggling mathematician with his homework or the advice on what to ask your daughter’s teaching in a parent-teacher meeting if you are concerned about her reading, or how to decode your child’s jargon-packed, politically-correct-to-a-fault school report?

This probably isn’t an education blog for teachers, full of jargon, spruiking the latest teaching fads. It is for parents, for one purpose – I want your child can get the most out of their school years, thanks to your deeper understanding of how children learn and how teachers teach!

You place your trust in us teachers, leaving your children in our care for hours a day. Do you actually know what they do all that time? And if you do happen to know what they do, do you know why? Hopefully I can, as a teacher, share what I know with you so that you can most effectively work in partnership with your child’s teacher and school to really make the most of this important stage in their lives! It would be my pleasure to be part of that partnership.

Be sure to leave your comments and questions.

- Teachling

(Image from http://toonclips.com/600/9222.jpg)

My 2 Cents

A teacher's take on blogs.

So, now seems the perfect time to launch this blog… It’s back to school this week for children and teachers in UK and USA! Meanwhile, us here in Australia are counting down the days to our school holidays in a couple of weeks. What’s this blog all about?
A few weeks ago one of my pet bunnies, Bobbi, was seeming a little under the weather. I jumped onto Google and quickly learned my rabbit had cancer, myxomatosis, hay fever (go figure), blocked sinuses, along with the numerous other diagnoses ranging from the tragically dire to the utterly weird (apparently ‘poopy butt’ is a legitimate concern for rabbits) trumped up by random bunny owners from around the world. Hang on, I thought, not a single diagnosis I found on good old Dr Google was written by an actual veterinarian! I thought, there must be many thousands of vets around the world, why are none of them on forums or blogs answering questions about people’s pets? I thought, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to get advice from a vet, rather than who-knows-who? Props to the thousands of bunny enthusiasts for putting forward your 2 cents but whom I really hoped to hear from was a vet. So I’ll have you know I did take Bobbi to the vet and it turns out all he had a regular cold – no big deal. However, that just further proved my point and it got me thinking.
If there are people with expertise in a field, why are they not doing their bit and sharing that expertise with others? Sadly, it probably comes down to making money more than anything else – Why give away for free, something you can charge people for? But…

Me, I’m a teacher. A primary school teacher from Melbourne, Australia. Why would I keep secret, what I know about education and what I think about how we can work together to maximise your child’s future?

I believe in communities – learning communities made up of children, their parents and families, their teachers and school, and everyone else that plays a role in their life, development and future – working together. Whilst my students are the centre of my Universe, I know that I am just a tiny part of their lives. Improving a child’s life-chances is everyone’s responsibility.

So that’s why I decided to start this blog. I hope it is a useful read for parents in particular. I’m here to help… I hope! I’m happy to share my 2 cents on whatever it is you want to know about education.  I recently saw a segment on TV titled “The Rise Of The Mummy Blogger”. Yes, there’re lots of blogs for parents written by parents, and plenty of great teaching blogs written by teachers for teachers, but sometimes it seems parents don’t get to hear what teachers really think. When you ask your child’s teacher, they are often obliged to tow the party line (ie. Tell you what ‘the school believes’) or tell you what you want to hear just to keep the peace. That’s where I come in.

I hope you like it and be sure to reply to my posts so I know what you’re thinking and what you’d like me to write about.

- Mr Teachling

Important disclaimer: I am a qualified, registered and experienced teacher, although I must advise that the contents of this blog ('Teachling') are general in nature and written in good faith, without consideration of any individual’s or group’s specific circumstances or needs. The contents of this blog should not be relied upon as professional recommendation (whether expressly or implicitly), rather as background information only.