Nurturing your children’s learning

Classroom Guyana

Hot Momma’s tip: Ask your child daily, “What have you learned today?

This is the first in a fortnightly series of articles by Jillian Johnson, a US Peace Corps Volunteer specializing in Inclusive and Special Needs Education intended to encourage more parental involvement in children’s education.

It’s the first day of school and children with bright eyes and big smiles are on their way in their uniforms of all different colours on bikes, in cars, in minibuses. Entire families can be seen making their morning drop offs.

At school, children line up and enter their classrooms where they will spend the next 7 hours.  They sit with their schoolmates, sometimes squeezed onto a small bench, and learn mathematics, reading and writing, science, and social studies among other topics. They do their class work, get their marks, play with their friends during breaks, and at the end of the day say their prayers.

School ends and they head back to a different learning environment, an environment where most of their learning for life will take place: home.

Home is where learners are born. As parents we have the opportunity to guide our children throughout their education, supporting them, encouraging them, and inspiring in them a passion for learning.

I remember as a child going home to share my school day with my family. I am the youngest of four — two sisters and a brother – and my parents are both educators. I can remember that as I walked through the door when I got home from school, the first thing my mother asked me was, ‘What did you learn today?’ The first few times I didn’t have anything more to say than, “lots of stuff,” but she never stopped asking.

My mother is the type of mom that I run into everyday here in Guyana. She’s the type of mom who is willing to give me the shirt off her back and go days without eating just so I can. She loves her children more than anything and wants them to succeed. To me, she is, like all of the moms I’ve met here, one ‘hot momma’.

My ‘hot momma’s’ consistency in asking me and my siblings about what we learned daily, I believe, is one of the many things that taught me to embrace my education and become a better thinker. Each fortnight I’ll share with you, a useful tip gleaned from my mom.

Showing interest and taking every chance to talk to your children about learning can help them welcome their education and become better communicators. It will teach them to take their education seriously and value what they learn.

Do you know what your children are learning about in school? Ask them today!

This column is for you as parents and guardians.  I hope it will be a guide to help you become more involved in your children’s education, and to take a more active role in their whole life. Step by step let’s learn the many lessons there are to be learned inside and outside of school. Let’s get involved and learn with and from our children, to encourage their learning. Just as each child is a unique individual; each child has unique learning capabilities that must be nurtured. Both are equally important. Let’s walk alongside our children through their education.

Please send specific or general questions about your children’s education or ways to teach them to: classroomguyana@gmail.com