Social Media and Our Children: Today, I received another disturbing video. I know we have all received posts of a psychoanalyst who is six-year-old; 4-year old preachers, and 8-year-old philosophers, or babies who have been taught 200 sight words before they can barely run. These abnormalities are not aged appropriate, but we think it is cute.
What would happen if young parents made the time to prompt their children to learn to read or at least appreciate reading because a parent did so each day. How clever if our children knew the basic information; address, phone #, and parents’ full name. It is not “MY Mommy.” State tests would have to be revised, AGAIN, if our children were taught how to conceptualize the numbers 8 and 2 more equals 10, where they knew how to draw models, write the equation, and explained in words their derived answers.
Imagine the real payoff or smiles earned (off-line), if young parents took their children to the zoo to ‘ride a train’ vs. hours and hours of ‘training’ to create a video on social media. Our children would have a greater opportunity to pass the infamous state-tests (kindergarten, 4th grade), and the dropout rate would not be as high at the other end (11th/12th grades) as well.
My goodness! I can imagine the educational system, in ten years, if parents began, today, to be more visible ‘behind the scene’ prompting teachers, administrators, state governing boards vs.their children on FB like parrots? THINK ABOUT IT! There is nothing cute about ignorance.
Dr. Dianthia Gilmore, Educational Psychologist/Academic Coach