As a parent and a teacher, I admire the quote by Jackie Kennedy: “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think anything else you do matters very much.” It’s scary—we all make small bungles and blunders, because we’re human, and the job of raising children is tough—but we strive very hard NOT to bungle in the big ways that matter.
Every generation experiences dramatic social changes, if you look at the history of
But it makes it hard to parent, and to teach, in a changing social climate. Especially today, in such a rapidly changing environment.
In a way, that’s healthy. We want to give our children “roots and wings,” and the tools to grow away from us, to prepare to become independent adults. They are the future.
But that’s the hard part: Tools to negotiate a world that isn’t always kind or friendly or fair.
And every generation of parents typically forgets their own tough growing years and focuses on how different things are today, now, while they’re trying to raise children.
But admittedly things are different today, in the twenty-first century, and this IS the challenge of parenting and teaching - Especially with the speed and ease of cyber communication. WIRELESS: seeing someone you’re talking to in
So how do we guide, how do we provide the tools? How do we impart VALUEs—and we’re not talking about religious beliefs or political affiliation, here, we’re talking about choosing right over wrong in our behaviors. Making ethical decisions.
We here at NVS take this role seriously. We strive to teach the whole child, the social/emotional person as well as the academic person. We set boundaries, make sure everyone knows those boundaries, and enforce them with logical consequences.
We have a problem-solving focus: We try to target a problem when it’s small, and work to solve it, so it doesn’t get bigger. Direct, specific intervention, teaching children to identify the problem, to own their part of the problem, to deal with the logical consequences, to learn from the choices in future decision-making. We model how to solve problems as a mode of teaching.
We also have guidelines:
Respect yourself.
Respect others.
Respect individuality.
Respecting self is the product of a sense of self-worth.
Respecting others and respecting individuality are the keystones of empathy. Without empathy, cruelty and bullying thrive.
So we work to build a sense of self-worth in each child, as well as a climate of empathy.
For us as teachers, we know the importance of modeling these behaviors. And we also say to ourselves: Be the grown-up. The children don’t need adult friends, they need adult guides. They need to know that caring doesn’t always mean agreeing or going along, that caring often means speaking up, drawing a line, saying that’s not right, saying no.
And I rely on my old guide to my own children: Be safe with yourself. Speak from your ethical self. Know that there’s a difference between being polite and being used.
But those are broad abstractions. Through indirect modeling, direct interaction, and direct instruction, we actually teach that respect, and strive to live it, every day here at NVS. Do we have problems? Of course. We’re in a house full of children. But we work hard to solve them in productive ways that not only resolve the issues, but model ethical decision-making as well.
