Help! My child has just been put into the dumb class!    081

As promised the new class lists were put up in the quadrangle. Emily, a Year Four student at Thornton Grammar, the well known private girls’ school, decided to get to school extra early. She didn’t want to be stuck behind a crowd of girls looking at the lists, especially as she was a little short. But other girls had had the same idea….

Finally she had a clear view, and there it was, “Emily Fitzgerald class 4G”. Well she knew what that meant. Class 4G, taken by Ms Goodnight, was one of the two ‘C’ classes. Emily’s best friend, Sophie, was in class 3K, which Emily also knew about. It was one of the ‘B’ classes on top of which was the ‘A’ class containing students who never seemed to stop reading and who gave interesting answers in class.

Emily went back to the quadrangle at recess but it was the same. And after all she had just spent the morning in Ms Goodnight’s class, and the roll had been marked, and Emily’s name had been called out. There was no mistake. Now all that remained was for Emily to tell her parents, especially her mother. The day passed perhaps less painfully than it otherwise might have because Emily liked her new teacher and some of her friends were also in the class.

What really hurt Emily though was when she overheard her mother telling her father, “She’s in the dumb class…” And it was how her mother said it that also hurt.  Well, are some children dumb, and if so should they be put into a dumb class?

Now it has been known for a long time that while educational success is correlated with intelligence this does not mean that increasing the amount of education a child receives will cause the child to become gifted and talented.  Intelligence, from say Year 2 or 3 right through to the end of high school, remains remarkably stable (see for example Charles Murray, Coming Apart, New York: Random House, 2012). Parents cannot then turn their children into geniuses but they can help their children achieve at higher levels, levels which are closer to their children’s potential—using more of the intelligence which they do have. I have written many articles on what parents can do to assist their children’s educational progress.

Now back to Emily and her disappointed mother. Hopefully, when her mother has calmed down a little, there are three basic points to reflect on. First, children do their best at school when they are happy, and this includes having support and encouragement from parents. Working hard is what needs to be praised, not being smart.  Emily is happy in her class and her mother should be thankful for that.

Second, consider Emily’s actual academic situation. Very few schools grade or stream classes especially at such a young age. Usually it is done by private schools with large populations of academically capable children. So suppose Emily was in one of the two ‘C’ classes. If she was performing at the top of her particular ‘C’ class this would put her approximately half way down her grade. However because of the higher standard of students at this school Emily would be above average in the wider population of the state, and surely this is something to be pleased about. Emily will be given work at the right level—challenging but not discouraging—and this will produce the most progress. Besides, Emily is still very young and final school performance is a long way off. There is plenty of time for improvement.

Third, achievement after school, in life generally, depends upon far more than just school achievement. So many successful businesses, for example, are started by people who performed dismally at school. What counts is character, diligence, persistence and ideas. And everyone can qualify here—but having supportive parents certainly helps. So Emily’s whole family need to change their approach to thinking about achievement. In general, the idea of doing one’s best is the most productive perspective.

The issue with school achievement that parents and children can drift into two different but equally damaging approaches. Parents mostly interpret disappointing achievement as being the result of laziness. Children could do better if they tried harder, therefore much more homework is needed. In contrast, children usually externalise low achievement. If success depends upon being smart—children reason—and they are not smart, then low achievement is not their fault.  Blaming teachers is another variation of the game. “My teacher doesn’t like me” or “I don’t like my teacher” or “my teacher didn’t explain that properly” or the combo approach as in “the smart kids have the smart teacher”. Whether or not children genuinely believe this line of argument the result is the same: reduced engagement and lowered potential.  So parents, be careful of how you support your children at school.

All content copyright—Mark Thackray—Australian Educational Services