Parent Conference Saturday October 19 - Special Education

http://www.tdsb.on.ca/parentconference

People for Education on how to help your child succeed

If you have a bit of time on your hands, there's a new People for Education report out that might make interesting reading. I can't find it online yet, but will post a link when I do. In the meantime, here's the Coles Notes version thanks to the Toronto Star:  http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1049486

The most important things researchers say parents can do for their kids’ success at school: • Let your child know you have high but reasonable expectations.
 • Talk with your child about school regularly.
 • Focus on attitude rather than marks.
 • Read to, or with, your child.

UPDATE: Here's a summary of the report or, if you're ambitious, read the whole thing.

Life with Teens - a series of workshops

Birchmount Park's school council is putting on a series of workshops on life with teens. Details below.

Click to enlarge

The growth mindset

Model Schools for Inner Cities hosted a seminar yesterday entitled "Raising Smarter Kids: how adults' attitudes can support -or undermine- children's achievement." (No pressure there, parents!)

This terrific session was given by Dona Matthews, a writer, researcher and educator.

Dr. Matthews draws a distinction between two types of mindsets that both parents and children have. The fixed mindset assumes (falsely, according to Matthews) that intelligence is fixed and stable. The fixed mindset is associated with lower achievement and lower self-esteem.*

The growth mindset sees intelligence as developing over time, with appropriately "scaffolded" opportunities to learn. The growth mindset is associated with greater confidence, risk-taking, and higher academic and career success over time.*

Dr. Matthews challenged some traditional thinking about children and intelligence. For example, she argues that people are not born smart; instead, their intelligence develops over time, with appropriate learning opportunities.

She also argues that parents should not praise their children's intelligence. This actually holds them back by making them afraid to take risks because they don't want to lose the "smart" label. Instead, we need to be praising their work, their achievements, their effort, persistence, strategies and results.

Dr. Matthews challenges our thinking regarding hard work, quick learning, failure and potential. Instead of labelling children "gifted" and putting them in segregated programs, she prefers to refer to children who have special learning needs because they are very advanced in a particular subject at a particular time. She believes those advanced needs are best met within the classroom rather than in segregated programs. She notes that any child can be advanced in a certain area at a certain time - not necessarily in all areas and not necessarily all the time.

What can parents do?

- Encourage our children to take risks

- Praise their effort and achievements, not their intelligence

- Talk to them about the concept of mindset, and the idea that their intelligence grows and changes over time

- Allow them to see failure as an opportunity to learn

- Expose them to as many different ideas, interests, activities and experiences as possible, and encourage them to pursue their interests

- Discourage perfectionism

For more information about these ideas, see Being Smart about Gifted Education by Dona Matthews and Joanne Foster (2009) and Mindsets by Carol Dweck (2006).

*Quoted from the handouts at the session.

Smarter, more confident kids

A workshop on how to raise smarter, more confident kids? Count me in. Details on the Clairlea school blog. (It's next Tuesday evening, Nov 3.)

Also, kids may wear their costumes to school on Friday, if they wish.

abc123 - an online education resource

Our School Council chair pointed me to abc123, an education site produced by the Ontario Ministry of Education. It is a great resource for any parent who wants to get involved in their child's education. It offers downloadable, printed and video resources in 15 different languages that should help support our kids in school and help keep them learning over the summer months, too! Enjoy!