Education does begin at home and it is that early learning experiences that give the child a boost when school begins at age five. For many other children that boost is hampered by lack of that critical component, home education. Let me cite just a couple of preparatory learning experiences for the young child. Does the parent talk to the child? Sounds so simple but in many homes children are not talked to and perhaps yelled at or ignored. Are there reading materials in the home where the young child might witness the adult reading? Is the child taught how to share both with peers and with the adults? Sharing and cooperating are essential qualities needed for the young child to have a successful beginning to education.
What happens if the young child is not prepared based on just those three items mentioned? Reading preparatory activities begin in that very first grade, kindergarten. Reading difficulties can be observed here. Can the new beginning for the child have the tools learned at home to get along with others; be able to follow simple directions and further take direction from an adult, the teacher? Behavioral problems for the young child can begin at the school level and serious enough to invite the parent for discussion. This discussion can begin and end if those few teachings did not happen before the child enters school. Communicating with the parent re. those deficits now presents a challenge to both school, home and community. What can society do about this deficit learning?
The simple answer to that question might be schools knowing the child is not yet in school. Helping, teaching the parent how could be done lovingly and bring fundamental changes to society's challenge of educating. The resources to do just an intervention would require a more focused concern by school officials plus the funding mechanisms put in place to operationally know every birth in Chattanooga. Would a new program like this cost more? Of course it would but what are the costs to society when we have to deal with behaviors that began in the classrooms and end up in the court systems?
The challenges I witnessed among staff and administration dealing with the difficult child takes an emotional toll on everyone. The child that is the behavioral concern affects the entire building and also affects the atmosphere of the general school population. These problem children are not an isolated issue and should not be considered as such. A lot of people in the setting of that family of children and adults within a school building are affected. Society can and should do better.
Robert Brooks