Kia ora e te whanau
The hardest part of mowing my back lawn is removing all the “stuff” on the lawn - garden seats, sports equipment etc. A well-mowed lawn means all the obstacles are removed so that the lawn has perfect edges and a shiny green surface! Unfortunately, too many of us adopt the lawn mowing approach to a child’s education. Parents and teachers quite rightly don’t want their child to fail so they subconsciously smooth the path. Examples can be:
I have sat through many enrolment interviews where the new student is asked a simple question e.g. “what is your reading like?” and the parent replies “He/she is doing very well in reading - also in Maths and Sports”! Rather than them growing the confidence to speak for themselves- they are spoken for. Perhaps have been all their life. Every person in education, teacher and parent, would want their young person to be confident, achieving, and on the road to adulthood. The unfortunate fact is that many students lack the ability to "get-back-on-the-horse" when they are tipped off. It is called resilience. Some ways we can encourage resilience and life’s opportunities for our young people:
In Luke 9:23, Jesus looks at his disciples and tells them, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” Lawn mowing parents could reflect on that phrase. For those who wish to read more about lawn mowing parents, I invite you to watch this video. Today’s newsletter is not intended to cause offence to anyone, but it is a call to reflect on what we do as parents to clear the lawn for our children- is it helpful? Will it set them up for future success? Our antiquated traditional ways of schooling by spoon feeding information is no longer fit for purpose. Any student can now find all the knowledge they need by searching through google. Spoon feeding in education is:
These are scary changes and ideas for many of us because it was not how we were taught and we turned out fine, right! We need to move on from the assembly line of feeding through the knowledge to inspiring a true love of learning in our students where they want to complete some study after school, not wait for the teacher to spoon feed between the hours of 9 to 3, or depend on extra expensive tuition because they did nothing in class during the week. Next week we have some exciting events coming up with the Life Education Trust coming to educate our Year 10 and 11 students on the dangers of vaping and our Year 9 students on how to be financially smart. We also have the junior sports quad happening in Dunedin and the Eastern Primary cross-country champs. Have a wonderful and restful Queens Birthday weekend, stay safe and help us keep our Covid cases down. Charity Fulfils the Law Tara Quinney, Principal
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