PARENTAL ROLE IN EDUCATION

For me being a student was both a sweet and bitter experience due to the kind of schools I attended and also how late I was exposed to learning at some point in my life. At first I started schooling really early because my aunt was a teacher at a private school and she was living with us. She convinced my parents to enrol my siblings and I in school quite early which was so rare at that time.

But when my dad and my mom got separated, everything changed and we had to stop schooling for close to three years because we kept moving from different places due to some circumstances. Normally, it was rare to see a one year old child already in school but that is not so today. Back in the days, children spent more time with their parents at home Learning first from them almost everything they should but today, parents have gotten so busy to the point that once the child is up to 8-9 months they enrol them into creche.

One thing I saw that was good being a student was the fact that being a student then, you must study really well if you want to move forward in your learning. If as a student you are not doing well in your academics, your parents would be advised to make you retake a class and most times those parents agree and that has made most student do better back then. But today, parents are not interested in making their children repeat a class due to reasons like extra expenses and also because they want their children to finish when their neighbors children are finishing.

Parents now are even more in a competition of who's child is better and they are not so interested in whether or not their children are actually doing well in school, just few parents are still after that. Now most student before now are more knowledgeable in so many ways compare to this age because I don't want to even imagine how much more we would have done if we had some of these exposures we have now back then.

Also back in the days, it was very uncommon for students to make use of calculators for calculations in school because it was seen as a limiting factor to how well children can think fast and accurately. Back then we have to solve most math problems without the help of calculators but that has changed now. Infact a primary school pupil now has an access to calculators and they can hardly solve a math without the use of a calculator.

And to think that now, both parents and teachers don't even see any thing bad with it because they also don't want to stress themselves. In fact now they even add it as part of the things some pupils need for a school session. Well, this is the fast age so bringing that in is not so bad because even back then in school, I felt like it was a torment saying we have to make most calculations without the help of a calculator.

To bridge this gap in the educational system, one thing I'd suggest is that parents should be more interested in getting the best out of their children. If only parents can take their time to teach their children and at the same time study them well to know what works for them, then I believe the aim of going to school will be revived. Because today we can see that most parents are taking their children to school for the wrong reasons and that will definitely bring about wrong results at some point.

As they say, charity begins at home so parents have a big role to play in bridging this gap in our educational system today. Schooling shouldn't be a competition but it should be something that we know it is for a purpose and if that purpose is not there then it is a waste. And the role of parents in this can't be overemphasized.

This is my response to the second topic suggestion in the Hivelearners community on "SCHOOLING BACK THEN".