Parent Perspectives – Introduction

So you can understand how important a role parents and guardians are playing in the education and career process of the student. This issue is something that you can not ignore or underestimate. 

As a blog writer, I have written many blogs and articles that are targeted to school teachers and home tutors, as well as students. But still there remains a void. Though all the articles and blogs written for the educational development of the student also concerns the tutors as well as parents and guardians. But there are very few exclusively for parents and guardians. I can feel that there are needs for writing articles targeting parents and guardians which will also concern the tutors and students.

There are many issues in a student’s life and education journey which only parents and guardians can solve. Just for an example, when the question of a student’s diet arises then I think the parents and guardians play the most crucial and decisive role in that.

When I write about a student’s health and fitness then also parents are the most important factors who decide their child’s food habit. Home tutors play great roles and responsibilities. But when it is time to choose the home tutor then a parent must visualize and understand many factors and variables that are involved with their choice of tutor. Same applies with the choice of schools and coaching centers. Even in many cases parents play active roles in buying books by selection of appropriate titles and by effective provisions of learning aids. 

Unfortunately, in our education process and system parents usually remain the most excluded participants. Some international schools try to engage parents and guardians also in their child’s education process by various activities and projects. That is good because that creates a holistic ecosystem of cooperation and coordination encircling the child’s academic growth. But just engaging does not produce the best results. 

Even many parents do not understand the purpose and value of their engagements in their child’s education process. They often complain for the time and effort they need to spare for such engagements. This is due to lack of proper information and education.

Parents needed to be educated. It is not that parents are usually not educated, but my point is they are not educated enough about the growth and education processes of their child. Our education system does not equip a person to become an efficient parent. There remains the gap. If this gap can be filled then we can see many problems relevant to a child’s education will be solved. 

In order to make parents and guardians aware and awakened on their roles, responsibilities and participation for their child’s education  we need content, massive amount of content. There are many books, articles, blogs, Youtube videos but not everything is well synchronized. Books and articles are usually too technical, blogs and videos are often superficial and unorganized. So I always felt a need to organize the modern theories of learning. 

With that idea in mind I am creating the present series of writings and articles and presenting them in 3 different perspectives, viz, perspectives for students, for tutors and for parents/guardians. There are sections for teachers with the name of Teacher Training(TT). Students will get their specific information from the section Student Support(SS). And Parent Perspectives(PP) are specific for parents and guardians. 

Though its 3 different sections, still anyone can read through any section irrespective of being a student or a tutor or a parent. That will enhance holistic knowledge and concepts and thus create better scope of coordination and cooperation between tutors, parents and students. Such an environment is bound to generate immense results. 

Other than those 3 sections for tutors, students and guardians there will be a general learning theory section. I will try to cover topics and implications from the view of educational psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and other latest developments in the subject. Tutors, parents and students as well as anyone interested will gain massive information and knowhow on these subjects and more in this section. 

Reading is not Knowing, Knowing is not Working

Any theory whatsoever is expected to work. How sophisticated and costly a theory can be, if it does not work then all the money, resources and efforts goes in vain. That is something not at all desired. 

But does just reading the theory make it work for us? 

By reading much of that information one can become well informed or at the most he can become knowledgeable. Still that does not end here. Just knowing does not imply that you can use that for benefits. The main objective is not reading, knowing and even working. The most important issue in it is its practical benefits. For that theories are to be better aligned with our practices. 

Parents and guardians can take the maximum benefits from these learning theories once they start adopting certain effective processes from the learning theories. Otherwise these theories are not only underused but practically ineffective and dead for young students. Same adoption should arise from the teachers side also. Just learning the theories for learning purposes does not contribute much to real life education. Teachers need to find out ways for using and implementing those theories. 

There are applications of learning theories for the students also. Usually school courses or university courses do not incorporate any of the theory and their application. But ideally if these are the theories for the students then it should come to the students. But those theories remain confined in university books and never reach the students in any form or format. Only teachers may or may not use some of those for the benefit of their students. 

It is true that all those theories are not easy and suitable for the understanding level of students, but some theories can be understandable and usable. There can be derivations from complex theories which can be directly taught to students for their learning improvement. But I never saw such an endeavour from any sector anyway.

So you must have understood that learning theories and theories of education psychology are not meant for scoring in university marksheets but for the benefit of student learning and the academic development process. If those theories do not meet up their designated purpose then how can we say that those are really anyhow important? 

In this current endeavor of my writing, I am trying to write those theories in a different delivery mood and content each for the student, tutor and parent. There can be derivatives, or there can be direct, but the theories must reach to all levels of education participation. There should be an urge and endeavour to implement them to all the levels and achieve maximum benefit possible for the students academic progress.

When Does It All Begin for the Parent?

As a child grows, there are many people playing many roles, of which all are more or less important. The doctors, the tutors, the family members, peers and all others available in the surrounding play their own roles in the growth and learning process of the child.

Parents have a lot of roles to play in their children’s growth and learning. Most of the roles are very important and almost non-transferable. That means those roles can only be played by parents and no one else on behalf of the parents. Being a parent you all must be very aware and concerned about all your roles and activities to your child. But the problem is elsewhere…

As I discussed above, only performing the roles are usually not sufficient. The parents must have proper knowledge of their roles also. Otherwise, they will always have chances to miss roles or misunderstand roles, or even unintentionally perform wrong roles. All these can be the cause of major health errors as well as behavior errors for the child.  This can be the least desirable thing for a parent. 

In my series of articles in Parent Perspectives, I will keep discussing different aspects of being an optimum and successful parent. But where should we start the discussion from? What is the right point where a parent will know and use his or her knowledge and expertise of parenting? 

This is a question for you to answer. When do you think that you will be turning into a parent? 

Little weird question, right? Most of you will answer, as when the child is born you become the parent. Well ok. But what about when the child is in the womb? Well many will answer like as the child is conceived they become the parent. Well, still ok. But what about before that? 

Actually, biologically, psychologically you are a parent even before you ever thought of being one. That’s the law of nature. And when we are discussing Science how can we even think of not respecting the laws of nature and instead try to override them? 

I am at least not going to do anything like that. Whatever Science I will try to discuss here, I will try my best to adhere to and respect the natural laws and theories yet available to the best of human knowledge. So in that context we will suppose that actual parenting is supposed to start far before one indeed becomes the parent or even one gets married. 

How Can Learning Begin So Early?

You might be thinking about this question now. But the answer is not too tough. Scientific evidences are already there that a child can learn at prenatal stages within the mother’s womb. More research will be conducted to produce more amazing results. Even many ancient philosophies also point to this fact. There are discussions and indications on this in scriptures like Vedas and Puranas. 

But how is it possible even before the prenatal stage? That is another big theory. The lifestyle and culture of the parents have been found to impact that of the offspring to significant levels. It’s partially about genetics and partially about psychology. And it can be about the environment also. The learning and education of the parents creates a suitable environment for the child to learn well and get educated easily. The exact model is quite complex. 

In this series of blogs over here, I will emphasize on the parent roles mainly after birth and more so after a certain age like 1 or 2 years. Still some ideas, tips and discussions can be there on the prenatal stages as well as stages before that. I have plans to discuss more stuff on these in the future ebooks and books. There will be a forthcoming series of articles here in KridhaTutor.com Blogs which will be on parenting. There we can discuss infant and prenatal stages better, including issues related to child learning and development of educational and intellectual faculties.