School administrators should make sure that their education system is up to par. Unfortunately, some schools are crippled by bad educational methods and here are ways to spot potential problems:
- Reading: Reading is an essential skill and it can be considered as the basic. A good way to start learning is to understand about the basic alphabetic information. Mixing phonics learning program with song and poetry may also do the trick for some children who love to sing. A poor method is to force students to memorize hundreds of words directly, because this can cause them to become linguistically illiterate through elementary and middle schools.
- Math: Math is an essential life skill, but some programs can be quite disruptive to the learning process of children. Some of the methods may use obscure algorithms and methods that end up causing children to become scattered and confused. The focus is to ensure children gain mastery in basic arithmetic, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. After children are proficient with single-digit arithmetic, they need move on to double-digit arithmetic.
- Knowledge: There are common details that students need to know, so they can understand everything around them, such as name of world capitals and planets. Often, this requires direct memorization, but teachers should also try to include understanding and comprehension, if possible. It may take time to memorize the name of continents, countries, rivers and mountains, but in the end, teachers should try to integrate these details into something comprehensible. So, when the students read the name of a river, they know at which country and continent, it is located. Teachers should organize details of basic knowledge from the simplest information, which can eventually be integrated into one another.
- Science: After learning to read, understanding math and memorizing basic knowledge, students can start learning about scientific details. As an example, after children memorize the name of popular and exotic animals from around the world, they may start to learn about animal anatomy and how various organs work. It is a basic knowledge that water has three states, steam, liquid and solid. But with proper math skills, students can calculate the amount of energy needed or released to change the state of water. When learning science, students should also know how to read illustrations, charts, diagrams and maps.
- Goal settings: A proper learning method will always include goal settings. Students should know how goals should e accomplished. Schools shouldn’t be plagued with an endless litany of alibis and excuses. Parents should sense whether a school doesn’t have a clear goal and if it’s, students may not be able to advance very far. Less effective schools only keep students busy with pretend-work that brings little benefits in real educational sense, because children have minimal comprehension and understanding about the subject, regardless of how much is being taught. In reality, children need to be challenged in positive way, so they are motivated to reach goals. In the end, schools should return to the basic goal of education, that’s to ensure children are properly educated and fully understand about the world around them.
