“What are your dreams for your children? How can a high quality education help them achieve those dreams?”
In each of the many interviews I’ve conducted with parents across the country, I always start with the same questions.
“Why is it important for your children to be challenged in school? How does it make you feel to watch them struggle with challenging work?”
Parents love to answer with stories about their kids. I love watching their eyes light up. And I start with stories because we find common ground when we share.
“How do you support your children when they bring home challenging work?”
In my time with Raise the Bar as a photographer, videographer, and social media strategist,, I’ve heard hundreds of parents, teachers, and principals share their stories of successes and challenges they’ve faced with their children and students.
There is lots of debate about the best ways to educate kids - Common Core, assessments, screen time, homework - but I’ve learned that there is also common ground. Here are the top 5 things that parents share when it comes to having a high bar for their kids’ education:
- Parents want their kids to be challenged
Grit, curiosity, critical thinking – Parents want their children to be challenged to build character and academic strengths. They want them to learn through productive struggle, and to be held to high expectations. Many kids thrive on challenge if they have the proper support at home and in school, even if they might not always see it that way…
- That doesn’t mean watching them struggle is easy…
Building character and academic strength is worth it, but who hasn’t been here…
- Holy moly! The new Common Core math is challenging!
Where do the value and struggle of challenge meet? Common Core math!
Building number sense, modeling, and thinking critically –some of the most exciting components of the new way kids are learning math — are also some of the most challenging. And let’s face it, the new math looks a lot different than what we learned in school.
So here’s some inspiration from one of the sharpest math teachers I’ve met so far:
- Parents want to help, but it’s not always easy to find resources…
The sighs of relief I hear when presenting the resources we have built at Raise the Bar has shown me that it can be really hard for parents to find good information about what their kids are learning and why, and how to best help at home. In fact, that’s why we built raisethebarparents.org.
So here’s to more quality information and tools that parents can use to support their learners at home, and less of this…
- Educators and other parents are often the best sources of support.
Because really…