So tonight I am attempting my first blog post, as a teacher blogger, not as a homework assigner. This post is for parents; of course kids can read it as well and probably should. Practice and effort? How often does your GT kid like to practice? How often does your GT child REALLY put forth effort? If your experience at home is anything like what I witness in class, then my guess is not very often. UNLESS, however, they have a GAME DAY coming up, perhaps a big sporting event or recital, or even a visit to grandma's where they get to show off . . . THEN they practice and put forth effort so they can SHINE!!
Today as I reviewed the amount of minutes my 4th graders spent on Khan Academy this week, I realized that my whole "BE PROACTIVE" campaign and take responsibility for your homework is ummm, well not going very well. I thought it was a grand idea, encouraging the kids to be responsible for their own work and not forcing them, but when not even one third of the class reached my recommended time, I had to question why.
Through observation, I found the answer. I asked those that didn't work at home to do Khan Academy in class and all of a sudden, I got - "But, it's haaarrrdd, Can I skip this lesson and do an easier one?" HUH?? Doing HARD work, learning something new, working through the frustration of not "knowing EVERYTHING - THESE things grow dendrites! These PRACTICES help you grow and learn! As an educator, I want my students to work through HARD stuff - that is the goal of school!
So parents, I ask for your help here. PLEASE encourage your child to PRACTICE and put forth EFFORT! Our speaker tonight from the Mensa society reiterated the importance of helping our GT kids understand the role of practice and effort in life. Her points hit home with me, especially after today's experience with kids not wanting to do the HARD stuff.
According to researcher Anders Ericsson, we need to help our children (you know yours belong to me too), understand the role of
deliberate practice. Here a few key points from the section from tonight's presentation on practice:
- Help your child get motivated to improve at necessary tasks that they don't enjoy (like difficult math or writing)
- Encourage them to perform the same or similar tasks in order to improve at something
- Ask them to try the same thing in different ways (such as different ways to solve the same problem, or different ways to write the same sentence)
- And here is a big one: Our kids MUST learn that they cannot expect to enjoy PRACTICE all of the time. In other words, I don't want them to work on Khan Academy because it is fun, I want them to work on Khan Academy because it helps them learn different ways to master their grade level math concepts.
So, I encourage you all to help your children set a goal this week for practicing so that the new concepts become familiar concepts. Only through practice, will your child become a better reader, writer, mathematician, speller, basketball player, chess player etc. How many minutes will your child practice this week on something that doesn't come easy to them?
