Episode 31: Education Triggers
Engaging, challenging, and empowering parents in raising well-rounded children through combining educational research to everyday life.
LISTEN NOW
ON TODAY’S EPISODE…
We all have triggers related to our educational experiences. Dr. Cagle shares her personal triggers being an English learner, and how those triggers have stayed with her all these years, even throughout her doctoral work!
This episode is timely for parents and educators as they gear up for a new school year to prevent kids from having some unfortunate school encounters, when they can easily be avoided by our efforts.
INSIGHTS
Let’s talk about triggers regarding school.
We’re going to start with a little activity:
What’s your first thought or emotion when you hear the word “test”?
Is it confidence?
Is it anxiety?
What about the word “bullying”?
Is it victim?
Is it guilty?
What about “reading” or “writing”?
Is it dyslexia?
Is it pleasure?
What about “math” or “numbers”?
Is it weakness?
Is it strength?
Everyone has different triggers with just certain vocabulary regarding school, even when not even asked to do a certain task.
Experiences, personalities, and abilities vary.
Challenge in 3 areas:
Watch your biases. Let your children live their own lives by creating their own school memories.
Empathize. Listen to what your children are sharing with you. Are they needing help? Are they needing attention? Are they needing intervention?
Include “school words” in your day to day. Teach them
It’s unfortunate that any assessment-related words are generally tied to good student, bad student. Good teacher, bad teacher. Good listener, bad listener. Good studier, bad studier. Someone that cares, or one who could care less.
Here’s the most important point of today’s episode: A bad grade on a test or quiz is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign of a gap in learning.
When your child brings home a poor grade, debrief with them. Most of the time, teachers really want to debrief with students… looking at each question and reworking every problem to show them the right answer and route of arriving at that answer; however, there’s always a crunch for time.
That’s where you step in, parent! As school gets ready to start again, make it a habit of debriefing with your child.
What does that look like? Sit with them, look through their graded work, and ask questions!
Educators, I have a special challenge for you:
Introduce the commonly used words in your classroom that could be triggers. Use them often and remind them that, although some negative emotions are common, you want your classroom to be a safe place.
Think about it: if kids hear “we’re doing a read aloud today!” will they have anxiety because they take a little longer to read than others or will they be excited because of the collaborative learning environment you’ve established in your classroom?
Parents, remember your challenge:
Watch your biases.
Empathize.
Include “school” words in your day to day.
Let’s do our part to restore the love for learning, starting in our homes.
