Family Matters is an area of interest for me.
One of the many hats I wear is I am the BOT staff representative. I attend any suspensions or stand downs. I am also a teacher of an accelerated class, year 8 gifted and talented. The reason why I chose this area, in my lifetime being an adult and during the years I have been a teacher the family as a unit and ideas around marriage has changed dramatically. From my observations, the parents of my students are now much older. Young people are now choosing to wait much later to get married. Often they flat together, save what they need to purchase their first home and then marry later. Or they just wait until they are financially secure to marry. An example of this theory is highlighted in the article, “ Trends in Education” where Hungarian men are marrying in their early 30s, as opposed to in the 1990s they were getting married in the early 20s. Same-sex marriages are now legal in New Zealand and many OECD countries are legalizing same-sex marriages.
The article points out that ‘effective education at the school level relies on good home-school relationships’. In my experience, this is so true. Many of my parents are available to engage in discussions about the learning, I have a reflective class blog, which parents have access to and I have an open door policy. When my class goes on a school trip, I must admit, my parents are only too happy to help out anytime and often I have to choose a selection from 10-12 parents who have offered their support. They are also eager to support their children if there is an area they need help with. Many of my parents are older mums and dads. It is not uncommon for some of my dads to be in their 60s and retired. However I have also witnessed parents of my students who have very high expectations, because they perceive their child as being gifted parents do not engage, or because they have a professional position there is another person in the child's life that is the child's advocate because of the unavailability of being the parent.
Money spent by government agencies on children 0-5 years is in my opinion money well spent. Access to quality childcare and childhood education is associated with higher school achievement outcomes and this is evident in the article. New Zealand’s early childcare curriculum is an outstanding document. What children learn in childcare about themselves and they have feelings of security, can socialise and are confident, this has an impact on their learning receptors. The first 1000 days in a child’s life, from conception to about 2 and half years, children are data gathering, they need to have in their lives a caregiver they connect with, creating the wiring of connections to all facets of the brain.
What does it matter if children are raised in same-sex marriages or parents who are now waiting to have children much later? What matters is that the caregiver is in front of the baby, talking to them with rich language and stimulating the baby through active play.
If you have the opportunity to listen to Nathan Mikarere Wallis, I thoroughly recommend him. He shares his knowledge of brain development, human development and is an advisor and university lecturer.
On the other side of the coin, many of our children are living at home with one parent or live with a caregiver other than family. Children who live in extreme poverty, come to school hungry and have no lunch. The article mentions that household debts across countries in the OECD are increasing and young people are now vulnerable to income poverty.
Our school funds a welfare fund and pays for students participation in extracurricular activities such as sports or camps so making opportunities equitable and available to everyone. However, as a BOT member, I have seen this need become more and more needed as families struggle to pay for activities at school. We provide breakfast to students who come to school hungry. As a BOT member, we make decisions on children’s outcomes when they do not adhere to school rules and many of these children come from unstable environments, broken and dysfunctional family homes. The decisions we make are taken into account considering resources we have and don’t have to help the child or consider the safety of the wider population of students and staff. Often we become frustrated by bureaucratic red tape or a lack of funding that restricts our options to make a decision that is conducive to everyone.
It is important in the future that our Government seriously considers a cash injection in early childcare and provide a robust maternity leave system. There is much discussion about paying parents to stay at home. I am aware we have this in place which is great. Government parties are currently debating and discussing what we do and the possibility of making changes. Those countries who have been paying mothers to stay at home and have been doing so for a long period of time, currently are closing prisons.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11778433
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/mothers-should-be-paid-to-stay-home-with-their-children-923484.html
Source: National Intelligence Council. (2017). Global trends: The Paradox of Progress. National Intelligence Council: US. Retrieved
Hello Mary,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog as I too am a fan of Nathan Makarere Wallace and his first 1000 day theory which makes so much logical sense. He's a great speaker and a real advocate for parental input when brains are first beginning to grow.
In addition, I really agree with your concept of involving parents and how those parent 'types' are changing over time. I fell into the bracket of having my children young whereas by the time my sister (6 years younger) was having children it was way more vogue to wait until later in life. The contrast is interesting ...where I engaged in activities with my children, my sister is very much taking hers to those out of school clubs that you mention and conversing with other older mums on the sidelines. It's always fascinating to me too how children from the same family can turn out differently.
Finally, I would agree that the idea of a link between poverty and a deficit in education is apparent. It was disappointing to see the failure of Jaime Oliver's drive (in the UK) to introduce healthy eating to schools as this is, in my opinion, a critical step that we often overlook in our siloed world where education is separate from family and health. Hopefully, in future, we can anticipate a more holistic approach to raising our young people.