When most of us purchase a new-to-us car, we expect that the car will have an engine and a transmission, four wheels that go around when the engine and transmission are engaged, and a compartment within which we can ride. A basic concept of what we expect. But, what if the car you find when they hand you the keys only has three wheels? Or, if there are pedals instead of an engine? Or, if there only two wooden benches upon which to sit inside the car? Does what you expect match with what you got? It’s all about expectations.
Then again, sometimes we receive things in the blind – sight unseen. Things arrive in the mail box or standing directly in front of us. Things pop up, people pop up, ideas pop up and events happen. Life sometimes happens in the blind when we don’t notice or we are not attentive. Getting something in the blind can be by choice or design and often is rather fun, especially if the something is whimsical and of no great consequence. Mostly, we don’t want things that are important to us to happen in the blind.
Our children’s education occurs mostly in the blind. We have expectations based upon our own education or that of older children. However, when it comes to a particular child, most of his or her education happens outside of our notice and immediate attention. A child goes to school for 180 days of the year with noticeable benchmarks of vacations, open houses, parent conferences and report cards. In between benchmarks, the school year is a long string of days when the child is out of the house.
The daily exchange between a parent and a child gives us insight into a parent’s expectation about schooling to be and their attentiveness to school life. I wonder what parents really expect a child to say at the supper table (or breakfast table or anytime when parents and children are regularly together) when he or she is asked “What did you learn at school today?” What is a parent expecting to hear? To what extent will what they expect to hear align with what their child actually says? Sadly, I think that most often a parent’s questions about a child’s school day are perfunctory, much like a “how are you?” is asked when seeing an acquaintance at the grocery. It is a question asked without much regard for the answer; a question asked in the blind. If a child made the usual comments about reading and writing and arithmetic with a comment about lunch and snuck in “oh, and I invited my teacher home for dessert tonight” would a parent even hear it? In most homes, there is a very low threshold of expectation when a parent talks with a child about their day at school.
You must know what you are expecting in order for what you get to make any sense or have any ordinate value. It may be more like playing horseshoes than not. Tossed shoes are expected to be somewhere near the post even if they are not ringers. Tosses that land out of the pit should raise your eyebrows, as in “… my teacher is coming for dessert.” You expect what a child says about a day in school to be somewhere close to your expectation – in proximity to the post of your understanding about what they should be learning.
To this point, I offer assistance for parents to help them know where today’s “post” is in the sandpit of school. Re-visualizing the educational post is important because most parents believe that their child’s educational “post” is the same “post” of their schooling 25 to 40 years ago. Interestingly, these same parents can readily contrast the changes in cars over 25 to 4o years and would not pay today’s prices for a car made 30 years ago. But, at the supper table, they judge what their child says about school based upon their own experiences in school more than 30 years before.
These references can assist.
Grade-by-Grade Learning Guide
http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/going-to-school/grade-by-grade/first/
This Guide describes the literacy, reading, math, science and social studies concepts that a child typically learns in each grade, K through 5. The authors also include descriptors of how children at each grade level learn and how learning changes across the grade levels.
Kindergarten through fifth grade: What your child should know
http://www.greatschools.org/students/academic-skills/531-K-5-benchmarks.gs
This source describes grade level learning as end-of-year outcomes – what the child should know at the end of each grade level. Working backwards, a parents can stage this learning across the school year. Know how the educational post moves during the year and pay attention to how close your child’s talk is to what he or she should be talking about.
Grade Level Application of Dolch Sight Words
This resource uses Dolch sight words to describe student learning. Because facility with sight words opens a student’s readiness for learning, sight words are a good indicator of ongoing learning. Watch to see that your child can recognize these words whenever and wherever they are seen.
Building Academic Vocabulary – Oklahoma State Department of Education
Robert Marzano and his associates studied and identified the academic vocabulary that is required for learning success at each grade level and in each subject area. These are the words a child needs to know and use in order to be ready to learn and extend their learning.
http://ok.gov/sde/building-academic-vocabulary
Know more about your child’s learning “post” so that you can better assure that the instruction your child receives and the learning they achieve matches your and the school’s expectations. Listen for benchmark words that correlate with grade level expectations in math, science and social studies. Listen for academic vocabulary that is appropriate for grade level reading and curricular understanding. If these benchmarks and vocabulary words are usual in your child’s supper table talk, then your child’s learning is around the expectation “post.” Then, know where the “post” moves as your child moves through the grade levels and subjects.
Eliminate as much of the educational blind as you can. You may not know everything about your child’s daily education, but when know what the learning “posts” look and sound like and pay attention, your expectations will be very close to your child’s daily schooling.