Children: Born as a Blank Slate

Topic: Children are born as a blank slate

Children are born as a blank slate” Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As our children grow they develop physically and cognitively. While physical development is soled based on genes and eating habits of a child, his or her cognitive development is a mental process which according to Piaget is a result of biological maturation and environmental experience. These experiences include being exposed to a school environment. While teachers are one of the majors state holders in a school because they are in a position to depart their knowledge to students they come in contact with exposing them to the formal and informal curriculum, they are not the only persons to educate a child. Moreover, students learn more from the hidden curriculum which can be defined as a side effect of an education which are learned but not openly intended such of which is the transmission of norms, values, and beliefs conveyed in the classroom and the social environment. Conversely as the saying goes it takes a whole village to raise a child hence, poor and good performers are as a result of how a child is raised.
Good performance, a theoretical retelling to a great extent what was taught on paper. Poor performance, failing to recall what was taught within a written examination process or performance that is what is believed to be less than the capabilities of the person. Jamaican school system seeks to segregate students based on achieving a certain level of academic success where failure to meet this standard is a result of being classified as a poor performer. This is an assumption that all individuals think deeply, analytically, flexibly, and imaginatively while reality shows that children develop at different stages and process things differently. Conversely, not all persons does well retelling things on paper but some are kinetically inclined and does physical examinations better that theoretical.
A charge cannot be laid until a guilty plea. Students’ performance is not solely based on lessons learnt by teachers hence teachers should not be held responsible for their poor performance. We can spend years pointing our fingers on the factors that contributes to poor performance: the home, inadequate school facilities and the methods of evaluating our students within the educational system. But does this solve the problem? Let us not waste our time pointing fingers on teachers but join in and play our part to relinquish poor performance.
We are all responsible for the performance of our future leaders; teachers, parents etc. don’t just sit and say teachers should be held responsible for the poor performance of students but rather let us diminish poor performance by our students. These include diagnosing the poor performance; create a performance motivation plan and educating parents.
……Educating parents leads to better parenting results better children, better children better students, better students better performance…