How can we help our children succeed?

I am enjoying this book now.  By Peter Tough – “How children succeed with grit, curiosity and the hidden power of character”.  In his book, Mr Tough related studies that support the teaching of character education to help pupils succeed in schools.  These ideas resonated on how best to educate our children for their future.

In the past 20 years, I have seen many pupils succeed and some pupils fail.  Though… “Fail” is a taboo word in recent years… substitute term … “Did not do so well”.  Some of the successful pupils were those who took pains with their studies, persevered in the hard times in their lives; had brave hearts and despite their own problems, had the compassion and willingness to help others.  I have also  successful pupils who had much resources at their beck and call.  They had breezed their way through their examinations with much pampering in their lives, got away with minimum work done in school and were ill-behaved and selfish.  I am glad that these pupils graduated and got out of my school.

There is a lot of anxiety among parents nowadays.  All of them want their children to do well in school.  However, parents with healthy children at least - most of them had only a narrow definition of success in the school – their children must obtain the highest academic score and ratings in their subjects at school.  This is probably a hangover of expectation from my generation and society. 

In my generation, the term “excellence” is defined in terms of number and type of awards. Most rewards given are based on academic merit.  Parents with children of learning disabilities and / or special needs also yearn for the best in their children though they know that their children would never be able to “beat” the present system. 

For example, my student told me that in a recent art competition, candidates in her level were chosen based on their grades - the number of As for their art work. Most of the candidates were from another high ability class, and my student who comes from the low ability class did not stand a chance of being selected.  Such is an example of an unfair yardstick in one school.

In the Straits Times of 15 June 2013, there is an article “Engaged pupils = successful workers” by Fron Jackson-Webb.  The article says that “the children’s interest and engagement in school influence their prospects of educational and occupational success 20 years later, over and above their academic and socioeconomic background.  The more children felt connected to their school community and felt engaged, rather than bored, the greater their likelihood of achieving higher educational qualification and going on to a professional or management career say the researchers at Menzies Research Institute in Tasmania, Australia”. 

Immediately to our parents’ minds would be the notion of doing well in academic studies.   No, the researchers are saying something else.  “The study reinforced the importance of school curricula to promote active, rather than passive learning styles that engage both the mind and body, and involve humour, music and movement.  It is important to recognise that the patterns of engagement begin very early, much earlier than formal schooling,  The notion that a school should be about sports, music, drama – not only numeracy and literacy, is important.  The students enjoy it, they like being there… the link between educational and occupational outcomes also extended to better health outcomes and well-being later in life.”     

So what research says reinforces what we know all along.  Doing well in early school affects one’s adult life.  It is just that, what does “doing well” refer to?