Read on Twitter
Ok, some tweets from me (a teacher) to people stuck at home with children, panicking about how to educate them:
I really worry that parents at home with their children will panic and put themselves under pressure to fit some curriculum or other. Please don’t. Just keep them interested and engaged in things they enjoy. Don’t make it arduous; you’ll just get stressed and it won’t work.
If they love cooking; cook with them. If they love PE; let them play outside. If they love science; look up fun experiments you can do. Don’t worry about them falling behind. A love of learning is all they need.
Encourage them to read but don’t force them to read. Find things they love and find books about that. Share their interests and be interested in them. That’s all teaching is.
At every single parents’ evening, I get asked the same thing: ‘What can they do to improve?’ And my answer is always the same: ‘Read. Find things you love - novels, non-fiction, newspaper reports, whatever. Just read and engage in reading’.
Also, let your children be wrong. Don’t pressure them for the right answer when they work. They are practising and they are allowed to make mistakes. That’s how learning happens. Let them do what they think, then help them improve. No child ever performed better under pressure.
To be a learner, you have to make mistakes. That is how learning happens. You wouldn’t coach a child in football and expect them to curl the ball into the top corner with their first kick. Let them fail; and celebrate them trying.
The children who make the most progress are those who are willing to make mistakes, because they aren’t embarrassed or worried about being wrong. Let your children do that and they will be brilliant.
There is no great mystery to teaching. Don’t worry that you’re doing something wrong or teaching them the wrong thing. If you are sharing with them and learning together, so it’s enjoyable and not stressful; you’ve cracked teaching. That’s all it is.
I will get emails over the next few weeks or months, asking ‘What should I be teaching my Year 8 child?’ My answer is - Teach them that learning is fun, reading is enjoyable and mistakes are fine. When you hand them back, we’ll do the rest.
Remember who your favourite teacher at school was and remind yourself why they were your favourite. Because they were highly academic? No. Because they pressured you and told you off for being wrong? No. Because they supported you, cared and laughed with you? There you go.
I’m not academic; I wouldn’t even class myself as particularly intelligent. But that’s not teaching. What I do is care about and love the children. As a consequence of that, my students’ results are very good. Love and instilling self-belief is all that matters and all that works
So, if you’re sitting there, panicking and thinking ‘I don’t know what to do; I’m not a teacher’, you’re wrong. You absolutely are. Just love them and enjoy sharing time and learning with them. You won’t do anything to damage their future, I promise.
Pep talk over; and if you’re still worried, just DM me. I’ll give you a boot up the arse and send you back out there.
