Why kids should go to school: Why Do We Have To Go To School?
Why do kids have to go to school?
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected].
Why do us kids have to go to school? – Vanessa C., age 10, Gilbert, Arizona
Kids go to school for many reasons. Where and when depends on their age, location, parental preference and local policies. Parents send their kids to school to expose them to experiences that are different from their own at home and in their communities. Schools are designed to provide spaces for exploration, self-awareness and connection with other kids. Teachers encourage kids to strengthen the skills they have and help them gain new ones as they advance from grade to grade.
I have spent the last 20 years studying and working with children from birth to 21 years of age in a variety of settings. I often think about how to create the best learning environment for children, beginning with preschool. To me, that means ensuring that all children have the opportunity to be in a school that can fulfill their learning needs as well as their physical, social and emotional well-being at all stages of their lives.
Preschool
Around 61% of 3-to-5-year-olds in the U.S. are enrolled in some type of preschool. Because these are critical years for brain development, attending a high-quality learning program is essential.
What makes a good program for young children? Since children learn through play, it’s important for play to be the focus of most activities. It’s also essential for teachers to interact with their young students and respond to each child’s needs.
During this important developmental stage, children also form a sense of self. For example, they might start to think of themselves as a big brother or sister if there’s another child at home. They also begin to connect more deeply with others, learn to communicate their feelings, practice sharing and more. When schools include children’s identity, cultural norms and traditions in the classroom, students feel a sense of belonging and inclusion.
This helps children form associations that are important for learning.
Elementary school
Children entering kindergarten at age 5 or 6 can have many different feelings, including nervousness and excitement for this new experience. Perhaps kids have heard adults say that starting kindergarten is the start of “real learning.” But this isn’t the case; kids learn from the day they are born.
With the transition to kindergarten, kids begin to work on personal and social skills, like managing their behaviors and reactions, problem-solving and logical thinking. Kids’ early experiences expand their ideas of how the world works. And as they mature they become better able to understand more complex thought processes, like reversibility, or water turning to ice and then back to water. Another concept they may start to explore is how matter takes the shape of the space it occupies, like sand filling a star-shaped container, and why that happens.
As students advance through elementary school, their reading and comprehension skills improve and they are able to use different resources – from reading books and watching documentaries to taking trips to the museum – to help them understand ideas they encounter inside and outside of the classroom.
The education students receive in school further builds on these experiences.
Middle school students begin to apply their skills and take on more schoolwork and school-related responsibilities, both inside and outside the classroom.
Maskot/Maskot via GettyImages
Middle school
During the middle school years, when students are typically between 10 and 13 years old, kids and parents are both starting to interact with school in different ways. Teachers increasingly give more responsibilities to students, and they try their best to personalize what happens in the classroom to students’ talents and strengths.
As students become increasingly independent, parents often pass on more school-related responsibilities to them. Students feel capable and competent when their environment supports who they are and encourages them to apply their existing skills at all levels, but especially in middle school.
Understanding all of the challenges kids are going through – like fitting in, maintaining friendships, puberty and others – can be overwhelming.
But middle school also offers opportunities for students to sharpen their skills and talents. Some schools may offer band, theater or robotics and other new opportunities to learn, play and grow alongside their daily studies.
High school helps students understand more about their own interests and passions while they continue learning how to critically think and communicate with others.
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High school
High school is an exciting time for most students because it’s the final gateway to adulthood. Students may take on a heavier academic and extracurricular load as a way to prepare for higher education. In high school, students are able to choose from a range of courses that may include journalism, biology, an advanced foreign language class or world history. At the same time, students may begin taking part in specialized activities like volunteering or trips abroad that could expose them to fields they’d like to study if they choose to continue to college.
The core principle of education is to enable students to become kind, giving and contributing members of their community and the world. While not all students have the opportunity to attend great schools because of unequal circumstances, it is critical all children are afforded education, at home or at school, public or private. Schools are a tried-and-true place where kids gain new skills and knowledge that they continue to use and build on for the rest of their lives.
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Why School Is Important – Bridge to Success
Spending eight long hours every day at the same old building filled with obnoxious children of different ages isn’t as easy as one thinks it to be.
What’s more, the never-ending homework that accompanies the students only adds to the hatred towards school. Undoubtedly, school is annoying and boring with a lot of effort going towards attaining good grades. Nonetheless, school is highly important; hence, the reason why your parents pressurize you to work so hard. Giving school a miss means that you are missing out an important stage of your life. Thus, out of the few negatives that come across going to school, it definitely has several positives as well. Glance through the following lines to know the importance of school.
Knowledge is Power
School is the basic foundation of knowledge being imparted to a child. It gives a chance to children to acquire knowledge on various fields of education, such as people, literature, history, mathematics, politics, and other numerous subjects. By obtaining knowledge, a person is in a better position to help other people. For example, you can calculate your taxes easily and speedily if you learn mathematics.
Also, with better information, you can attract attention at a gathering by taking active part in the discussion.
A Ladder to College
Unless you complete your school education, you cannot get yourself enrolled into a college. College is highly significant to succeed and achieve your dreams. With higher education, you can get a good job and lead a better life. Without academic career, you will not be able to make a living for yourself, unless you are one of the very few exceptions.
Allows You to Socialize
Attending school gives you a chance to meet new children of your age. While some remain only classmates, some get close only to become good friends for many years or even lifetime. Conversely, if you stay at home all day long, you will probably not be able to meet many such people of your age. Meeting new people and socializing also broadens your parameters of knowledge. Thus, if you want to lead a good social life, it is best to attend school; else you might end up leading only a lonely life.
Keeps You Engrossed
Unless you are much occupied with various tasks, staying without work during the day can be really boring and tiresome. Isn’t it better to attend school rather than sitting idle the entire day? Not only will it keep you active, it will also help you learn other useful skills as well. Though you might enjoy staying unoccupied for the first few days or a month, after some time, it will get damn boring and kill you. Thus, attend school to be a happy, successful person.
Overall Development
Gone are the days when school meant just learning the events given in a history chapter or solving tough mathematical problems or reciting poems and sonnets! Nowadays, school has become the first stepping stone in the life of a child, wherein he/she learns a lot more than just rote learning. Developing hobbies, refining them, learning basic etiquettes, getting skilled at multi tasking, developing social skills are some of the many things that a school equips a child with.
How to explain to a child why you need to go to school?
Many parents face the problem – the child does not want to go to school! What is the reason? Firstly, in the obligatory observance of the daily routine and strict discipline; secondly, in the inability to adapt in a team with classmates.
Any child coming to class for the first time encounters a lot of new unusual sensations! This is the unquestioning authority of the teacher, the system of classroom and homework assignments (it is necessary to learn and write everything!), and not always successful relationships with the guys. There is an uncomfortable feeling – he must, he must. nine0005
How can you explain to your child why you need to go to school? Many psychologists advise explaining to a young son or daughter that school is a second home that will accompany him for many years. And while studying at school, he will be able to find true friends who may be with him all his life.
To say that he will gain a lot of knowledge and become a completely adult person (which is what most children aspire to).
It is important to draw the child’s attention to school from the first day, to motivate him to study. nine0004
Let’s look at all the real advantages of studying at school:
Even a student sitting on the last desk and chatting the whole lesson involuntarily absorbs new knowledge – it’s a fact. New information is already progress.
We were all young once and often heard that the time spent at school or university is the best years of life. The child begins to build friendships in a team and to understand people from his personal experience, right there. nine0005
School subjects for the first time reveal his predispositions and help decide on the choice of profession . After all, it is here that he gets acquainted with various sciences, and tries to understand what he gravitates towards.
Very often a child has questions in his head: “Why should I study chemistry or physics if I want to become a doctor?” The benefits of the exact sciences , leads to the logic of thinking, develops the flexibility of the mind and the ability to solve many life problems.
Who among us has not heard – you need to study for “five”!
Diligent children most often become excellent students, who behave quietly and methodically do everything. But the guys from Kamchatka can become future talents! It is more important to comprehend the principle of obtaining knowledge – to find reliable sources, to be able to separate the main from the secondary.
The school routine brings us gradually closer to the work schedule. With each class, the amount of knowledge grows, at the university it grows into 6-7 pairs, and then logically flows into a full-time job. It’s prepares us to be stronger, more purposeful.
Homework is education of independence, responsibility , development of the ability to plan; find your right way, think over and correct the mistake.
So, let’s single out the main reasons for the need to attend school : socialization and communication, development of thinking, learning new things and mastering the necessary sciences, independence and ability to cope with difficulties, determining professional orientation and preferences, obtaining a document on completed secondary education for subsequent employment. nine0005
Sources: rosuchebnik.ru; inring.ru; 7ya.ru; maam.ru.
See also:
- The book, I love you or how to love reading
- How to unleash your creativity with a smartphone or tablet: a list of special applications
- Children in social networks: for or against
- Natural and historical sights of Turkmenistan that may be of interest to schoolchildren
- students and parents – stress and pressure, and after graduation – also a lack of knowledge;
- teachers – low prestige, salary and social insecurity;
- university – a discrepancy between the knowledge of students and the actual requirements for admission to higher education. nine0068
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Why do children not want to go to school?
For most adults today, it is unthinkable that a child does not attend school. Absenteeism, absenteeism, even an elementary reluctance to go to school is often a reason to “tighten the screws”, hold an educational conversation, shame for laziness.
Not all parents try to get to the bottom of the reason for this reluctance. Many experts very seriously and reasonably argue that the problem is not in the children, but in the school itself and the system. nine0005
Not laziness, but statistics!
According to various estimates of psychologists and educational workers, more than 50% of children in the post-Soviet space do not want to go to school. Think about it, more than half of children experience discomfort from their main source of knowledge. Depression, psychological trauma, neurosis – all this is a daily routine for school psychologists.
At the same time, the school is turning into a “really” dangerous place, the statistics of crimes within the walls of educational institutions is growing, and reports of teenagers who attack teachers and classmates are getting louder. nine0005
It is customary to blame everything and everyone except the school itself: the child, parents, friends, social networks, games and culture.
In fact, you should look at the school system itself.
Line of fear: teacher, mistake, peers
Teacher
Fear of the teacher is instilled in the student from the first days at school. Fear and punishment are the main educators and tools with which they try to maintain formal discipline in the classroom. Respect for the teacher was replaced by apprehension, craving for knowledge – fear for an unfulfilled task. nine0005
At the same time, many experts note that “the craving for a subject is directly proportional to the attitude towards the teacher. Many people argue that the job of a teacher is not to please, but to teach. This is a very dangerous path, because such a “teach” can hide a lot of unacceptable things. And certainly, to scare children is not the task and work of the teacher. We are not talking about the upbringing of ideals in a modern school, about the example of a teacher for students.
Error
The fear of a teacher is followed by the fear of a mistake.
Many say that individuality is suppressed in school… Sorry, this is yesterday, today schoolchildren are afraid to make a mistake. A bad mark or an incomprehensible lesson is a reason for bullying, humiliation, or even resentment.
Moreover, the error causes a bad grade, which in some way affects the “status” of the student. “He’s a trio!” and “What can he write there?” You can hear more and more from teachers. At the same time, these are not only powerful blows to the psyche, self-esteem and motivation of the child, but also additional stress. nine0005
But mistakes in the learning process are inevitable, and it is on their understanding and how to eliminate them that one learns. Edison, at one time, made many unsuccessful experiments before creating the light bulb. In life there will be no tick or the only correct answer, you will have to constantly improve and dig to the right solution. Why then should students be afraid of making mistakes in a school where teachers should help them with their analysis and correction?
peers
One-year-olds and the school team is a separate, very difficult topic.
Today it is relevant both for teachers and psychologists, and for criminologists. Relationships with peers at school are called nothing more than “survival”. The problem lies not only in adolescent psychology, the desire to stand out, but also in the position of teachers.
The team is used as an additional instrument of influence. However, along with this, teachers withdraw from working with the team. In other words, it is resorted to only when it is necessary to influence a student or a group of students, and what will happen next … Unfortunately, this remains the problem of students. The functions of socialization, instilling cultural norms, according to psychologists and sociologists, have failed. Moreover, methods of working with a team can complicate the life of a student in the future. nine0005
Cause and effect
On the one hand, all these problems lie in the broken education system. She remained at the transitional stage, where it is important to observe the “external forms” of the school.
All participants remain dissatisfied with the learning process:
On the other hand, the teacher also lost his former status. Low wages in general education schools, high workload, strict formal requirements – all this makes this work unattractive for competent specialists. In such a repressed environment, talented and qualified educators themselves can be under severe stress.
Fear, as the main tool for working with schoolchildren, is inherently imperfect. It is unable to interest or provide knowledge, its effect is very short-term, in contrast to the negative consequences. It is important to note that such a depressing situation, although common, is not absolute.