"Clothes don’t make a man" – said Jay-Jay’s mum to him in an episode of the popular ’80’s American sitcom – Good Times.
The hood does not make the monk. School uniforms don’t guarantee your child is learning all s/he needs. Don’t abdicate your primary parenting responsibility, which is to teach him/her what s/he needs to know.
Check and confirm that your child’s teachers/school are giving him/her the right QUALITY of learning.
Do this by interacting with your child based on what s/he is expected to know and be able to do. If you notice any shortcomings, especially in aspects relating to important foundational concepts, call the attention of the teacher/school to it. Then wait, watch and check again for changes. If none, or too little, either do it yourself or hire a COMPETENT private tutor.
Personally I recommend doing it yourself. Today, even finding competent private tutors that can give reliable value for money is not easy.
What’s more, quite often, doing it yourself produces other benefits beyond improved learning in your child.
And if you doubt that YOU can teach your child successfully, take it from me when I say you were born to be a teacher to others, young or not, starting with your own kids.
Indeed as a parent you are your child’s best teacher!
Incidentally, after attended university in Nigeria, many of us observed our compulsory year of post-graduation national service working as school teachers.
It was often not up to us to choose. We simply reported to our respective place of primary assignment, and if it turned out to be a school, or locality where school teachers were in short supply, you were most likely to get posted to serve as a teacher for one or more subjects.
As a matter of fact some of us actually taught students in preparation for their final qualifying WAEC exams.
I observed my service year in Gulu-Vatsa village in Lapai LGA of Niger state. There I found myself officially assigned to GSS Gulu teaching Maths, and Agriculture.
But not for from that school was GGSSS where I later got drafted to teach the same subject as word spread about my habit of putting in extra hours to help the students catch up on several areas they were yet to cover.
Note here that I taught mainly final year students preparing for the WACE examinations, and so had to test them with questions at that level. What I found out was that they had VERY little in terms of their foundational knowledge to get them successfully through the exams.
Yet I recalled that at 16, I’d successfully self-studied for, and passed my WAEC exams just a few months after returning from a 2 week suspension.
The suspension followed a blitz of bad behaviour in which I, as a School Health Prefect, along with another prefect, and some seniors, began to routinely miss classes,while playing all sorts of pranks.
The pranks included catching, slaughtering and roasting the Vice Principal’s backyard homestead chickens).
One day we got caught in a trap specially set by the school authorities for us, and it was all over.
What saved me – enabling me fulfil my promised to my disappointed parents, that I would redeem myself by passing the exams – was my sound grasp of the basics of every subject I’d learned.
This derived from the strong reading, comprehension and writing skills I had developed from YEARS of exposure to a mother who took it upon herself to COACH each child till s/he developed reliable proficiency.
To facilitate that process, she created a home environment where books of ALL kinds that were relevant to our study needs were readily available.
Having done that she regularly encouraged us to engage in self study. The result, especially for me, was that I developed the ability to self-teach myself on virtually any subject, and therefore learn any topics I chose to, from the syllabus, even if the school teacher had yet to cover it or was not even around.
Only one compulsory subject gave me problems – both when I was in class as well as when I tried to self-study. It was Maths – and the 5 credits I got from my exams did NOT include it.
Since my mother did not teach that subject, she had not been able to help me with it.
When I got a P7 in the exams, I think my parents asked around and eventually arranged for me to attend private coaching classed at Translat Training Centre, not far from the University of Lagos gate.
It was there that I met a wonderful Igbo gentleman teacher, who took me under his wing and taught me how to overcome my Maths challenge. By the time I took the Nov/Dec GCE exams, less than 6 months later, I scored a distinction (A1).
I should add that I’d become so confident of my Math skills that I’d predicted the "A1" score to my mother, but she’d gently smiled and replied "Tayo, just get a credit. That will do" – apparently thinking of how I had always struggled with the subject.
But something had changed, and that was how I thought about the subject. My new teacher had opened my eyes to see a new way that enabled me apply the intelligence everyone knew I had to succeed at it.
Now, my parents were not the ones who taught me to get over my Math problem. But it’s obvious from the above story that they were the ones who did the thinking, and ultimately identified a competent person or provider (the Training Center), to help me overcome that single limitation.
It was a serious limitation that threatened to hold me back from pursuing further studies at university level – because a CREDIT in Maths was a minimum requirement to continue at that level.
My story illustrates the powerful role parents need to play in their children’s "learning" while they are in their formative years.
The idea is for you to understand that you do NOT need to know EVERYTHING your child needs to learn – and I don’t just mean academics or school work alone.
Instead, you need to get involved in checking or testing to ensure s/he demonstrates a convincing grasp of what s/he is expected to know and be able to do at the right stages of his/her life.
If I were you, however, I would also make a point of including life skills acquisition in the "learning menu" I present to him/her during our interactions when s/he returns from school. That way, the delicate balance in information and education for school and for life is more likely to be achieved.
Today, more than ever, book knowledge alone in NOT enough!
Letting yourself and/or your kids feel satisfied with wearing uniforms, and going to learn academic subjects in school, may be a dangerous game that prevents you from fully preparing them for life AFTER school.
You should remember that your child will one day need to leave home to function as an independent income earning adult away from you.To do that with minimal avoidable setbacks, in today’s world, s/he needs to complement his/her formal schooling with real world relevant knowledge, and skills.
Here’s a tip: Think back to what you have had to LEARN that formal schooling never taught you, but which you’ve found crucial for making your way in the world successfully, in caring for yourself and your family.
Whatever comes to your mind are possible examples of what YOU as a parent may need to add to his/her life skills LEARNING menu, to complement whatever formal schooling s/he gets!
PS: If you have kids and are reading THIS, know that I say the above from VERY personal experience as a child from my years with my parents, as well as a parent today, to my own kids.
Do the above, and the results you get will make you thank me for telling you to do it.
You’re reading The Hood Does Not Make the Monk. School Uniforms Don’t Guarantee Learning! by Tayo Solagbade, originally posted on his Daily Self-Development (SD) Nuggets™ blog. If you loved reading this post, be sure to follow Tayo on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
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IMPORTANT NOTE:
On 4th May 2014, Tayo’s 9 year old domain (Spontaneousdevelopment dot com), was taken over by Aplus.net. Within a few days however, Tayo used his advanced self-taught web development skills to build (and move his website contents into) a SUPERIOR "reincarnation" at http://www.tayosolagbade.com.
Most URLs bearing the old domain name appearing in search engines should now work if "spontaneousdevelopment.com" is replaced with "tayosolagbade.com". If you experience any difficulties finding a page or document, email Tayo at tksola dot com.
Click "Tayo, What Happened to SpontaneousDevelopmentDotCom?" to read a detailed narrative about how the above event occurred :-))
Here’s an article Tayo wrote, to inspire others to defy adversity, and bounce back to even greater reckoning at what they do EVERY time:
Succeed by Emerging from Adversity Like a Phoenix (TayoSolagbade.com launches extra Hosting plan with FREE Web Marketing!)
And he wrote the one below, to explain why losing a domain name, no matter how old NO LONGER determines your online success or otherwise:
A Proven Strategy to Find Profitable Buyers Regardless of Your Domain Name
Source: ExcelVB
