Ready, set, school!

MANILA, Philippines - Months into the school year, an elementary school teacher shares her knowhow to help your child get on the road to academic success.

“Mommy, I don’t want to go.”

Your little one tugs on your skirt, and gazes at you with puppy-dog eyes, pleading, begging, as if entering that classroom was a fate worse than being subjected to having pinakbet every night.

Preparing your child for school might be a harrowing experience. But preparation ought to do the trick. As Henry Ford said, “Before everything else, getting ready is the secret to success.” 

• Prepare your child to think critically. Mara Perez, a social sciences teacher at the Ateneo De Manila Grade School, believes preparing your child to think critically is the best way to get him ready for school. “Yes, we want them to be prolific in math and science, but our country needs citizens who can illuminate in our dark, polluted world,” she says.

• Train your child to be independent. Philosopher John Dewey said, “Education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself.” Perez is no stranger to “little emperors.” She sees students go out of their cars with yayas following them, toting their lunch boxes, while a body guard carries the school bag. At home, everything else is done for the child. Training your child to do things on his own will help him with his student life.

• Chronicle every step of success a child makes. “Parents may take a picture of their child who successfully wrote the alphabet, or who completed a multiplication table, or who got accepted in the soccer varsity,” says Perez, adding motivation and praise at this stage are very important. Perez knows a parent who does this by taking pictures of her son’s ribbons and uploading them on Multiply. If the child sees himself as victorious in little steps, it would be easier for him to go through the long journey known as school.

• Read your child a few lessons in advance to motivate him during class discussions. At the start of the school year, students are given syllabus or course outlines. “This results to higher self-worth and self-confidence and these are very crucial if we want a good school year for our children,” says Perez.

• Instill a love for reading. Before the school year ends in Ateneo Grade School, teachers give students a summer reading list. After talking to her students this month, she was glad to know that they’ve actually read the books. “I can still vividly recall a quote from our library when I was in grade school, ‘A child who reads is a child who leads’ and that’s very true.” Training kids into bibliophiles will also encourage a love for studying, widen their vocabulary, and expose them to different things.

• Set goals for the school year. For their school publication, Perez asked some honor students to write for a column titled “S4: Secrets of a Successful and Sagacious Student.” “School is like treasure-hunting. It’s hard to look for a treasure if you do not consider it a treasure. Probably, parents can ask their children to write their goals on a special paper and post it where they can always see it.” Examples of such goals? Getting an award, winning a basketball game as a varsity, improving the grade in the most difficult subject, submitting all homework on time, or helping one classmate a day include some of them. At the end of the year, parents don’t need to reward their children with toys or gadgets they want. Perez believes that they must inculcate in their children that achieving their goals is a reward in itself.