Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The study of attitude is very popular among social scientists because it significantly determines people’s emotion, cognition and behavior. Countless research support the fact that attitude shapes behavior and its eventual outcomes in other forms of psychological experiences. Because of this, people try to avoid negative attitudes and adopt and live by more positive ones. However, attitude is not as concrete as behavior. It could be equated to belief and faith in a supreme being, making it abstract and intangible.

Attitude cannot be easily quantified. In addition, it cannot be taught and assimilated like other skills we learn in life, primarily because of its subjective, abstract nature. If it was easy to change attitudes, self-help authors and speakers would have gone out of business long ago. On the contrary, the field is flourishing. The main reason being – one has to actively make a choice to change old, negative attitudes and adopt new, positive attitudes. In this sense, attitude and behavior are not directly connected. They only interact when another component exists, which is active choice on the part of an individual.

A matter of choice

While people may think that choices could be environmentally manipulated, it is ultimately a highly personalized experience. In actuality, choices cannot be manipulated unless it comes from the individual himself. There is also another complication – some people may choose not to make choices.

This is the reason why schools’ effort to bring about positive academic and non-academic behaviors by means of employing attitude-change tactics fail. When schools focus too much on changing attitudes, they are fighting a war with the unknown (literally hundreds of unknown personal choices of students). While this may work with some students, the majority may not necessarily feel the need to change.

Alternate approach

For those students who do not respond favorably to attitude-change tactics, there is another approach that might work. It involves the same two variables: attitude and behavior; employed in reverse order. The following diagrams illustrate the difference between the two approaches.

The common approach presupposes that attitude determines behavior (e.g. If my attitude toward a particular food is negative, I avoid that food by all means). On the other hand, the alternate approach assumes that behavior determines and shapes attitudes.

In 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment that proved the effectiveness of the alternate approach. The experiment confirmed that people’s attitude does change with changes in behavior and behavioral expectations. College students who participated in this experiment were randomly assigned the roles of prison guards and prisoners (subjects did not have any previous experience in any one of the roles). They were asked to take their roles seriously and behave like actual prison guards and prisoners. The planned two-week investigation into psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the required behaviors were doing to the college students who participated in the situational role-play. Prison guards became sadistic, prisoners became depressed, and everyone showed signs of extreme stress.

Implication for education

Providing an environment for positive changes is more effective than “preaching” to students about it. For example, if teachers want students to become more creative in their approaches to academic tasks, they should first of all model creativity (i.e., ensure creative seating arrangement, assessment tasks, teaching techniques, behavior management, etc.). If teachers want students to be honest with each other, then they need to display honesty with his/her own colleagues, administrators, parents, and students.

In short, academic attitudes can be changed by deliberately manipulating a learning environment and its accompanying behaviors![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Since teaching quality directly determines students’ academic achievement, school leaders set in place systems and mechanisms to check on teacher performances on a regular basis. This includes monitoring lesson plans, examining study guides, validating test papers, and observing lesson delivery. While these are vital for operational purposes, it does not necessarily enhance teacher competency and improve overall student achievement.

The problem

Traditional systems for monitoring teacher performances require hours of paper work and documentation. This is one reason for burnout among teachers and administrators. In the end, teachers and leaders spend significantly more time away from each other, students and parents. More time is spent in front of a computer catching up on paper work for the sake of fulfilling job requirements.

Clearly, this is not what providing a good education means. Excessive paper work tempts teachers to take short-cuts (e.g., lifting lesson plans from internet) and makes it impossible to assess true competency level of teachers. Also, there is no guarantee that a school administrator can successfully monitor quality of teaching solely relying on documentation presented by teachers.

Solution

Is there a way to monitor teaching quality and at the same time reduce the amount of time school personnel spend away from each other?  In fact there is! It is called Microteaching. This technique is beneficial for one important reason – it is proactive, meaning that it tackles problems in teaching before they adversely affect student learning.

It focuses on positively building teacher competency in safe, non-threatening and mutually beneficial training sessions. Microteaching allows school leaders communicate their vision and expectation of how teaching should be carried out. It serves as an opportunity to train teachers and at the same time engage in quality assurance and control.

Features

Microteaching commonly takes place in teacher training colleges. It should not stop there. It should find its way into schools because it is conducted to boost teacher confidence by providing systematic support and feedback in a highly collegial setting. Teachers meeting in microteaching sessions try out teaching methods, classroom management techniques and assessment procedures in front of their colleagues, who in turn provide constructive criticism for improvement.

This involves collaboratively reviewing lesson plans, observing lesson delivery (either in real time or pre-recorded lesson in actual classroom), reflecting on and creating action plans to promote best practices. Microteaching sessions are usually facilitated by a qualified and experienced teaching consultant and/or school leader. It is said that microteaching is one of the quickest, most efficient, and extremely fun way to help teachers become competent.

How to do it?

Microteaching sessions typically contain three to six (or more) teachers, supervised by an expert in pedagogy. The session begins with everyone watching the recording of a teacher’s lesson delivery in an actual classroom. At the end of the video clip, teachers engage in answering questions like, “What did we see happen? How was the lesson delivered? What was good? What could be improved? How would I do it differently? How were students assessed? How effective was classroom management throughout the lesson?”

Additionally, teachers may reflect on and discuss in detail as to how the lesson was introduced, what was done to help students acquire, extend and apply knowledge/skills, classroom climate throughout lesson delivery and habits of mind developed in students as a result of being exposed to the lesson.

Through microteaching sessions, administrators explicitly communicate what kind of teaching they would like to see take place in the school and review lessons delivered by teachers without subjecting them to anxiety and stress. Teachers learn from each others’ strengths and weaknesses. It is a special time when teachers talk about teaching and learning in an intelligent manner.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Children get all worked up when adults observe them during classes. They put up a front and try their best to impress the visitor. High achievers take this opportunity to boost their pride by displaying special abilities. Average students try to catch up. Under-achievers usually shy away and feel that it is not important for them to make any impression on the visitor. This is what one would usually observe when visiting math, science, language arts, and social studies classes.

However, the dynamics of observer-student interaction is different in physical education, music, computer, and visual arts classes. Why is this so?

Different subject, different response

Somehow, the protective guards that students wear in core subject classes are dropped in non-core classes. For whatever reason, students look forward to non-core subject classes, although they are scheduled less frequently. Non-core subjects do not pose as much threat as do the core subjects. Students, regardless of performance level, feel a greater sense of control, want to show what they can do (regardless of how well they can do it), and feel less pressured to engage in social and academic comparison with their peers.

In parents’ mind, non-core subjects like computer, music, visual art and physical education are not as important as core subjects. The former do not determine the eventual success of students either at university or work. There are parents who require children to get good grades in core subjects and care less about performances in non-core subjects.

Herein lies the secret to unlocking the true potential of every student to excel in learning. Learning experiences that are characterized by high degree of freedom in pressure-free environment arouse students’ interest and motivation to learn, naturally. Hence students’ level of engagement in non-core classes is high, without any extra effort on the part of teachers.

Psychological basis

Psychologically speaking, the primary difference in educational experiences of students in core and non-core subject classes has to do with social and academic comparisons. This factor, coupled with a variety of other factors, give rise to differences in students’ responses toward learning.

Every student learns to compare him or herself with other students. Ideally, this comparison is done with someone, against whom students believe they should have reasonable similarity. Unfortunately, in the absence of such a benchmark, students use almost anyone to compare themselves and arrive at a conclusion of how good/bad they are.

Upward comparison occurs when students compare themselves with others who they consider to be academically better. Downward comparison acts in the opposite direction. For example, a university software engineer student who compares himself with Bill Gates (in software programming) is engaging in upward comparison. The same individual engages in downward comparison when he compares himself with a high school ITC student.

Obviously, both types have adverse effect on students. Students who engage in upward comparison feel disempowered to learn, while students who engage in downward comparison feel unchallenged and lose interest.

Implications

This is what happens in core subject classes. Social and academic comparisons in these classes are at the peak, at all times. Students know this and succumb to the norm to compare. In the end they learn for the sake of proving their self-worth to others.

On the contrary, non-core subject classes do not require such comparisons. Fortunately, grades for these classes are not as important. Hence everyone is relaxed and learn at his/her own pace. External pressures are removed and intrinsic motivation is high. Each looks at him or herself as uniquely and personally responsible for learning experiences and outcome. Because of this positive experience, students often surprise teachers with exceptional, creative performances/products in some of these classes.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Students often feel left out and sad about not being involved in class discussions, Q & A sessions, etc. Usually, a few students dominate interactive sessions such as these; a few others attempt to get involved, while the rest remain quiet throughout. At Wells International School, teachers and students work together to deliberately and systematically provide equal opportunity to all. Teachers accomplish this through a variety of creative techniques. The following is one such example:

Step 1: Have every student’s name represented in a set – be creative!

Step 2: Put them all together in a cup – to allow easy access

Step 3: Pose question(s) or present task(s) – e.g. “State a question by looking at this picture using any one of the following words.”

Step 4: Pick up a name, randomly

Step 5: Call out student name and give him/her time to answer the question or perform the task

Step 6: Put the name out of the set/pile and use the rest of the names until everyone have had a chance to participate – for another round, put all the names back in the cup and start all over

Advantages:

1. no one can say “no” or “I don’t know”
2. everyone is happy- everyone gets equal opportunity
3. no ill-feelings – teacher is fair to all students
4. those who dominate learn to give others a chance
5. those who shy away are gently “forced” to participate – no excuses
6. great way to teach respect for each others’ answers and perspectives
7. creation of positive learning environment that helps in overall learning

Acknowledgment:

Thanks to Mr. Neal Hawthorne (Homeroom Teacher), Ms. Kate (Teaching Assistant) and students of Grade 2 of Wells International School (Thong Lor Campus).[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In our society, parents desire to give the best to their children. Enrollment in expensive, well-reputed school, purchase of the best educational resources available in the market and opportunity to participate in a variety of fun and enriching experiences are some ways parents cater to the needs of a growing child.

Parents living in this century feel the pressure to focus on providing the best education to their offspring (more than any other time in the history of our civilization) for a wide range of reasons. Many of them feel that their own educational experiences were mostly defective. Others believe that a good education has the potential to make people successful, responsible, and caring. And there are others who recognize the importance of a good education in preparing their children for the complex, uncertain, highly challenging future.

However, the future is unknown. While parents assume that a particular kind of education would prepare children for the future (work and life itself), they cannot guarantee it. Hence everyone approaches the whole issue by relying on subjective experience and judgment about what constitutes the best education. In reality, no one can actually say what their children really need, and how they should be assisted in acquiring them.

With this background information, let us explore ways to increase children’s potential to deal with an exciting and unpredictable future.

1. Children’s quality of life is proportionally affected by the quality of relationship they enjoy with parents, siblings, and other significant individuals in society. Ask any adult what he or she remembers from his or her classes or school/college/university and the answers would invariably point toward experiences that are based in relationships (e.g. “I had a great Chemistry teacher who encouraged and supported us,” “I remember this one time when we sang Happy Birthday to our teacher in the middle of a test,” and “Our principal was a strict man and never smiled.”). It is uncommon to hear answers such as, “I remember how plants make food and the formula for photosynthesis,” or “I remember all the events that led to the Second World War in sequence,” etc. In other words, people recall relationships more readily than what they learned at school. This is not wrong. This is simply how humans are. Hence, there is value in focusing on providing children with healthy, positive social-emotional experiences both at home and school. When children feel happy, they are ready and want to learn. Children who experience fear, insecurity, distrust, doubt, threat, and rejection are highly stressed, frustrated, and do not want to learn. Parents and teachers who genuinely love and care for their children provide them with opportunities to grow as functional individuals who are happy with themselves and others around them. This is a very important characteristic for survival and success in the future. Children who have a good quality of life grow up to become successful individuals. Good quality of life does not come from giving children all that they want (monetary sense), but from giving them sufficient exposure to positive human relationships.

2. Believe in your child – by nature, humans like to compare themselves with others. However, our tendency is to compare ourselves with those who are better off. When we do this, we feel small and disadvantaged, leading to negative feelings toward our own capacity to grow and achieve in life. Children learn to engage in social comparison early in life from parents and teachers. Because of this, many individuals develop negative attitudes toward themselves – they doubt their own potential, and before long, they believe that they are good for nothing. DO NOT compare your child with another child. There is no value in doing so. In fact, when we compare one child to another, it destroys the self-image, motivation, and confidence of both. Several research by Dr. Carol Dweck from Stanford University indicate that adults send a negative message to children when they use labels such as smart, average, or dull. In reality, these do not exist (ranking only exist for the purpose of employment, university admission, etc). They do not represent the true ability or potential of a child. Hence, parents and teachers must be careful not to compare children with others, including themselves. Every child is special. Every child has his or her own strengths. Children who succeed (regardless of school achievement records) are those whose strengths are tapped into and nurtured. A child’s strength could be in an academic subject. It could also be in non-academic areas. As parents, we should be open to accepting children’s strength without judging the field/area in which the strength is manifested. For example, in the past, when children did well in dance class or athletics, parents shunned the idea by telling them that these are not going earn them a living. Today, these pre-conceptions are proven wrong. In fact, when one area of strength is celebrated and nurtured, other areas of life undergo significant improvement as well. Believe in your child, sincerely. Believe that he or she has a special place and role in the world. Be supportive in bringing the best of your child. When parents and teachers believe in their children, the latter develop positive attitude toward themselves and become internally motivated to climb up the ladder of success.

3. Empower rather than spoon feed – We can take a horse to the river, but definitely cannot force it to drink from the water. At the end of the day, every child makes his or her own decisions about a variety of things. Parents and teachers who think that they have complete control over children’s lives are making a big mistake. While children may listen and obey, they are forming their own personal mental framework as to what they want and do not want. Psychologically speaking, children who are allowed freedom to engage in collective decision making are well-adjusted and responsible compared to those for whom all decisions are made by parents and/or teachers. This should begin early – earlier than most adults think is possible. For example, when a mother bakes cookies, she could ask her two or three year old to join in – the child could be involved in deciding about the type of cookies to be baked, the shapes, the flavor, etc. By involving children in this manner, they get to engage in higher order thinking, form preferences, and defend their choices. Creativity can be introduced and sharpened through a variety of simple, day-to-day activities at home and school, if parents and teachers spend a little bit more time thinking about designing learning experiences suitable for children.

Adults have spent a lot of time teaching children. It is time to stop teachingand start inspiring! Children who are inspired do more than what is expected of them. They push their own limits to continue treading new and challenging territories. Success for such children is inevitable and real. These are the kinds of people who will face the challenges of the 21^stcentury, wisely.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Students spend about six to eight hours a day, five days a week (sometimes more) at school. These long hours are supposed to equip students with enough knowledge and skills to prepare them for future work. After school, students continue learning in tuition centers or other self-development institutes to compensate for knowledge or skills that schools do not teach.

At home, students continue learning through homework. In other words, an average student (regardless of performance level) spends about twelve to fourteen hours per day learning. High school students preparing for standardized exams may spend more than fourteen hours per day.

Society’s obsession

While learning itself is not harmful for students, the assumption behind how students learn needs to be re-visited. Long hours are required for learning because society wrongly believes that people who know more are more successful than those who know less. Secondly, society fails to acknowledge that students are humans whose capacity for learning is proportional to their qualitative experience in life. Thus, unlike a robot or machine, students’ ability to learn effectively is not only dependent on repetition of facts and/or cognitive skills, but more importantly, on meaningful repetition (which only comes as a result of connecting learning with personal experiences and reality).

The amount of knowledge acquired and the number of skills mastered have become an obsession in our society. Students are expected to learn at school and then at home. Instead of asking children, “How are you and how did school go?” parents ask, “How did you do in Math? Did you get a good grade? Are you going to work on your homework?” Students are pressured to learn at all times.

Competing outcome

Surprisingly, if adults are asked what they remember from school, the most common answers pertain to friends, fun experiences, good teachers, and other things related to human interaction. It is rare for people to talk about what they learned at school, leave alone applying their knowledge in real life. If this is the case, it is logical to think that we require students to spend countless hours in learning to pass tests for no apparent long-term gains. However, the trend continues without much hope for a significant change in the overall system.

Where does the problem lie? How do we change this scenario to reflect a genuine sensitivity toward the learning process that allows us to provide students with only relevant learning experiences?

Change agent

Society, past and present, continues to expect schools to manufacture individuals who are heavily equipped with subject knowledge but devoid of everything else important to humans (e.g. social-emotional intelligence, physical development, global citizenship, etc.). Despite numerous attempts to change how education is practiced, schools find it difficult to change because the people who make up the pillars of the system refuse to value new approaches and ideas.

Since 1960’s, literally hundreds of educational and psychological research have indicated that children learn only 10% of what is taught and that they learn through different modalities. In other words, not all children learn at the same rate and with same style. However, schools remain unchanged because parents (society) refuse to give their children an education that is different from their own. Parents figure that if the education they received made them “successful” it should work well for their children as well.

What they don’t realize is that different times require different learning. If society does not raise its expectation of student learning, schools will continue providing what they are asked to deliver. Hence the inability of schools to provide a more progressive education to students is directly linked to the unwillingness of parents (society) to relinquish their wrong ideology about the sacredness of traditional education or way of teaching/learning.

Society’s role

Schools do not and will not rise above parents’ expectations. A holistic change in education system worldwide will only be possible when parents raise their expectations of what schools should and can do as a center for learning.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]For a novice or a teacher without teaching credential, the work of dealing with idiosyncrasies in children’s learning behavior is the duty of either school administration or counselor. Every little difference in social-emotional experiences and/or behavior of students (compared to the norm) could be seen as a possible warning sign. Hence, these teachers are quick to refer students, after having them labeled as extremely withdrawn, hyperactive, slow, deviant, etc.

However, when schools resort to such a referral system and permit the mindset that go with it, they are actually condoning a wrong-doing in how students are educated, especially the so-called “at-risk” learners. This approach places the blame for academic failure solely on students. But countless research findings indicate that academic success is determined by both student and teacher characteristics. What teachers do and/or do not do is equally responsible for under-achievement as what students do and/or do not do – a truth conveniently overlooked in the past.

For many decades, it was believed that students are fully responsible for their own failures. While this may be partly true, it is a narrow way of looking at the issue. There has been no breakthrough in dealing with students with specific learning difficulties because educators have been looking for the answer in the wrong place.

Definition

The term “at-risk” is used to refer to students who are not experiencing success in school and are potential academic failure. When a child is suspected to be at-risk of failing, teachers, administrators and counselors examine the child’s family background, home environment, past achievement records, etc. All attention turns to the child. School personnel consult with internal as well as external departments or agencies to come up with scientifically sound educational intervention to help the child. At least this is what happened in the old system.

New paradigm

Experienced and/or teachers with teaching credential usually understand the term “at-risk” differently. For these individuals, the condition is preventable. They correctly know that many at-risk students ended up being such because of what teachers do or do not do.

Examples

When a teacher is boring and monotonous, he could expect young learners to lose focus and engage in behaviors similar to hyperactive-attention-deficit conditions. Because of ignorance and oversight, the teacher then refers children who display such behaviors as ADHD cases and label them as at-risk of failing in test/exam.

Teachers who speak too softly place children at-risk of hearing impairment, and potential academic failure. Ineffective use of whiteboard (e.g. very small or illegible handwriting, disorganized presentation of points, etc.) increases potential difficulties in reading, following instructions and completing homework assignments.

Teachers with unpleasant personality and negative attitude discourage students from seeking help, hence increasing possibilities of under-performance. In this example, it is students’ refusal to seek guidance, rather than their actual intellectual prowess that places them in the at-risk category. This could be easily averted if a teacher is approachable and friendly.

Way ahead

Since most at-risk students are the direct outcome of teacher characteristics, teachers must start looking at themselves as active agents of students’ academic successes and failures in a more responsible manner. Teachers must become more perceptive of each student’s strengths and weaknesses and provide differentiated, individualized attention to each child to maximize his/her potential. They should reflect on their profession, understand its seriousness and accept to do all that it takes to help every child to succeed.

Change of expectation and attitude, engaging students in active, meaningful learning, getting students interested in lessons without judging/labeling them, believing that every child can and does learn, and utilizing multiple approaches to reaching out to students are some effective ways to prevent academic failure, successfully![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If one had to ask teachers whether or not they use questioning as an instructional strategy, the answer is invariably a confident yes. Teachers, regardless of their level of effectiveness feel that questioning is the easiest way to engage students in interactive lessons. This tends to be the case until one provides teachers with a different description of how questioning should be done to elicit maximum intelligent responses that indicate actual learning from students.

Most teachers believe that effective questioning is the ability to sprinkle randomly generated and/or intuitively expressed questions throughout lessons. They think that more questions mean better engagement in learning. Another misconception is that only open-ended questions involve higher order thinking. These may be true. However, one has to look at questioning as a far more comprehensive and technically demanding instructional strategy to attain its inherent benefits.

The ineffectiveness of current use of the questioning strategy is evident in the inability of students to understand test questions. If teachers use and overuse questioning, how come students still don’t know how to go about decoding the same when required?

To engage students in effective questioning, a teacher needs to follow certain tenets. These tenets constitute the underpinning rationale for the effective use of questioning in a classroom setting. The most important of these is, “every student, regardless of his/her past or present academic achievement level, is questioned.”

First tenet

Being humans, teachers tend to question only bright students. They do this for many reasons, none of which are educationally valid. Struggling students are deliberately skipped because teachers don’t like to wait for answers. Some teachers believe that these students cannot answer questions intelligently. Good questioning involves giving every student equal opportunity to take part in the process of learning. Even when a student answers “I don’t know,” a teacher should not give up. Asking a follow-up question or paraphrasing the question allows the student to have another chance.

Simply put, teachers should be sincere in providing everyone a chance to engage in learning through questioning. This includes students who try to avoid eye-contact with teacher by looking away and those who don’t put up their hand.

Second tenet

Another effective questioning tenet worth following is, “require students to justify all responses.” This tenet guarantees the involvement of complex thinking along with lower level mental processes. For example, it’s easy to answer the question, “How are you today?” However, when teachers go further and ask students, “Why do you say so?” a different reaction is seen. Students start thinking hard about reasons for answering the question the way they did. They pull ideas together and creatively express them using effective communication. This can be done by following the Q-R-Q pattern, where teachers ask a question, elicit a response, and ask a follow-up question that requires justification for the answer(s) provided.

Third tenet

“Questioning should not encourage random guess-making.” I have heard teachers saying things like, “Can anyone make a guess?” or “Any wild guesses?” etc. If students are to make wild guesses, then why do we teach them that a hypothesis is an intelligent guess? There is a huge difference between an intelligent and wild guess. While the former is based on prior research and reflection, the latter is based on gut feeling. Going by gut feeling in the process of learning jeopardizes the credibility of knowledge. Hence, effective questioning requires teachers to ask questions that encourage students to reason and respond thoughtfully.

Outcome

Teachers who use effective questioning strategy break the culture of disengagement in the classroom. Passive students become active. Those who heavily rely on teachers for answers become thinkers for themselves.

For more information about Highly Effective Questioning, visit http://www.workshopsinquestioning.com/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Having been in the school system, dealing with parent complaints is a commonplace. At first glance, the complaints may seem to be purely related to operational issues. However, a close examination of different types of complaints reveals that they usually stem from deeper, often hidden, factors.

Philosophy of education

Everyone who has been through schooling holds his/her own opinion about education and how it should be imparted. Likewise, parents and school administrators hold their own unique philosophy of education. Schools are governed by a set of beliefs that dictate and guide their educational decisions and practices. As such, most complaints and/or clashes between parents and school administrators arise from significant differences in the philosophy of education of these two parties.

Philosophy of education drives the vision, mission, and expected school-wide learning goals of a school. Additionally, every school has its own unique philosophy that may differ from other schools. In this context, parent complaints can be traced back to two things; parents’ discomfort with difference(s) between their own and the school’s philosophy of education, and also parent’s tendency to compare one school’s philosophy of education with another.

Example

Administrators in School A decided to increase the number of Language Arts periods and reduce Math and Science periods by one per week. Hence students meet seven times a week to learn the English language and only four periods to learn Math and Science respectively. According to the principal of School A, the school strongly believes in the philosophy of relying on concrete data to make educational decisions.

The principal added that student performance on a standardized test the previous year indicated significant weakness in the area of English language. School administrators also found out that there is a significant correlation between performance in the English language and other subjects like Math and Science.

Hence, School A’s move to increase Language Arts periods and reduce Math and Science periods was based on a philosophical understanding that assessment data directs planning of teaching/learning experiences.

However, parents of School A hold a different philosophy. According to their philosophy, Math and Science are the most important subjects. This belief seems to match their own experiences when they were at school. Furthermore, they realize that other schools do not do what School A does. Hence they conclude that something is really wrong with the school and lodge a complaint.

Implications

Addressing parent complaints is necessary. On the other hand, if School A tries to address the complaint without going into the root of the problem, the administrators will fail to convince parents about the truth of the matter. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that school administrators address the root of the problem rather than pacifying parents by covering up complaints.

Schools and parents should work together to communicate each others’ philosophy of education. Fixing complaints is a temporary solution. Understanding and working from the framework of each others’ educational philosophy is a long-term solution to dealing effectively with parent complaints.

Parents rarely complain about a school whose philosophy of education they understand, fully accept and advocate for. Schools that succeed in this process would receive fewer complaints in the long run. Sessions that encourage parents to think about and own school’s philosophy of education work well to this end. Such sessions (or parent workshops) should actively involve parents to talk about, question, and assimilate school’s philosophy as their own.

At the end of the process, an increased sense ownership is developed, fostering a feeling of belongingness toward school. This sense of belongingness discourages complaints and encourages the celebration of successes instead.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]