Why do some children LIKE school, and others do not?
Why do some learn easily while others fail?
What should you teach YOUR child before he goes to school?
WHAT was your excuse for bad grades in school? A sickness that held you back? A teacher that "had it in" for you? You just "never could" get interested in history?
What should you teach your children of pre-school age? How much should they know before attending school? How can you insure they are eager, attentive, learning children — disciplined in study habits, and responsive to their teachers?
Do you, as a parent, know what kind of a student your child is, or will make when placed in school? Do you know how he will get along with others?
Our Failing School Systems
Remember the furor about schools when the Russians put "Sputnik" in orbit?
Suddenly, Americans were made aware something was drastically wrong with our educational systems! Uniformed policemen were patrolling the hallways of some of our urban schools, a principal had committed suicide, teachers had been attacked on their way home at night, others were resigning their positions, or moving from big city schools to suburban areas.
The Russians were stressing SCIENCE! They were surging ahead in the space race! Suddenly, Americans became concerned. Congressmen clamored for action — a solution to our flagging educational systems — an explanation for the failure to conquer space FIRST!
American educational systems came under the spotlight. Nearly EVERYTHING was suggested as an answer, as the reason for our problem. Inadequate facilities, poorly trained teachers, not enough stress on mathematics and science, not enough attention to "brilliant" pupils, who were forced to remain in unclassified groups with slower students, and myriad other excuses were suggested.
Yes, nearly everything was suggested as the real REASON for failing educational systems — except the TRUTH!
The real truth behind poor educational standards is — LACK OF DISCIPLINE!
Sluggish, inattentive, rebellious, poorly trained STUDENTS are the REAL REASONS for our inadequate educational systems!
In the past series of articles, we have seen the clear proof of the huge cancer of child crime gnawing at the vitals of America. We have seen the proof of its direct association with delinquent PARENTS! The inescapable truth is that our failing school systems, our inadequately trained children who can't read, write, spell or work simple arithmetic problems, is also the DIRECT RESPONSIBILITY OF DELINQUENT PARENTS! Parents who never prepared their children for school, who didn't take an interest in WHAT the child was being taught or How he was taught, who didn't do a THING except heave a sigh of relief that at last, "Johnnie is in school" and out of the way!
Today, youthful parents try to peddle their children to nursery schools, day-schools, kindergartens and the like LONG BEFORE the children are anywhere near the age when they should be away from their parents! A woman appearing on television recently said, "The children are all in school now, and I find myself with so much extra time" explaining why she, along with millions of other "modern mothers" was seeking a JOB away from home!
Today, true to the prophecies of your Bible, parents are pursuing their OWN selfish pleasures, taking their pets to the kennel and their children to the nursery school, to get the little "house-apes" out of the way. Millions of parents look upon their own children as an unfortunate accident foisted upon them by due process of nature!
It is the accepted practice, ignorantly approved and advocated by teachers themselves, to place little toddlers into a nursery school or kindergarten to PREPARE them for the first grade. Well why not a PRE-NURSERY school, and a PRE-KINDERGARTEN school, to PREPARE them for THESE "schools"? And then what about a PRE-PRE-KINDERGARTEN, so parents can abrogate their responsibility RIGHT AT BIRTH? What a hideous spectacle to the Creator God who blesses His children with tiny reproductions of themselves — to turn them out to pasture like animals without parental guidance and training!
WHEN Should Children Enter School?
Children vary, of course. There are different levels of mentality, of intelligence. These factors are primarily determined by heredity and environment. Although lamentable, most school systems are understaffed and poorly equipped to differentiate, offering specialized teaching to the slower pupils, and more advanced training to the superior ones.
However, for the sake of coming to a right understanding of these most important points about your children, let's concern ourselves with the average young child.
Many parents are in a frightful hurry to get their children OUT of the home, and into some sort of formal education! A desire for more time, for another job, for belonging to various and sundry "social" clubs and groups has led countless young mothers to give rise to a burgeoning new profession in our land. It is the "day school," the "nursery school" and the "kindergarten!"
Many parents try to enroll their children in a public school at 5 years of age, or one year prior to the standard entrance age in most school districts. Seemingly their only concern is to GET RID of their children — get them in SCHOOL as soon as possible! How many ladies' magazines, novels, TV serials and movies have portrayed the "typical" harassed mother in America who sends her poor, shuffling, bumbling clod of a husband off to work with a disinterested peck for a kiss, and then, hair streaming, apron strings flying, bustles busily through the house, scrubbing, dressing, feeding and shoving her children out the door, to collapse on the couch with exhaustion, a cup of coffee, and her favorite love story?
WHY, oh WHY is it such a DISGRACE to WORK in America and Britain today? WHY is it such a DISGRACE for parents to really take the time to TEACH their children? WHY are such normal, natural, wholesome and GOOD things as HOMEMAKING, COOKING, and TEACHING CHILDREN AT HOME looked upon as mere BONDAGE AND DRUDGERY?
Many parents will IMPLORE school officials to allow them to register their children in school EARLY! But has there ever been a parent who wanted to enroll him LATE, because he felt there were still a number of really IMPORTANT things, he, the parent, should yet teach the child in preparation for school?
Decades of experience with growing children has taught teachers that a child is still too immature, too much a little infant to really be placed in a classroom environment before he is six full years of age. Most teachers are very reluctant to admit children under their sixth birthday for that reason, and rightly so.
The average child should never be placed in ANY kind of school, for WHATEVER reason until after he is six. However, today there are so many BROKEN HOMES, so many divorcees with children, so many homes with parents striving frantically to live far beyond their means, and holding down two jobs, that myriads of children ARE, through one excuse or another, placed in schools even at age THREE! Here is another heartbreaking tragedy of our age!
There are, to be sure, inescapable situations that would demand that a child be cared for by a responsible, bona-fide nursery school. However, never forget that such situations are the direct result of the parent's SINS, and that they are causing the children to SUFFER for it! There is nothing NORMAL about tiny children barely able to talk being "farmed out" to OTHERS for rearing! Millions of helpless, innocent little toddlers have had to pay dearly for their parents' mistakes!
The best way is to place your children into the school Systems NOT ONE MINUTE BEFORE YOU ARE REQUIRED TO DO SO BY LAW! They need training YOU, as their parent, can give them FAR MORE than they need to be hurried into learning the "three Ys" from professional teachers!
Then, when the normal time prescribed by law has arrived for beginning your children in school, INVESTIGATE the school. TALK to the teachers and officers. VISIT the premises, and look into the classrooms and facilities. FIND OUT what kind of DISCIPLINE the school maintains, if any, in today's rebellious age — and inform the teacher you want your child to receive any and all appropriate and loving DISCIPLINE that is necessary!
HOW MUCH Should Your Child Know Before Going to School?
Some parents diligently teach their children the alphabet before placing them in school. Others teach their children how to READ simple stories. Some even have their six-year-olds doing simple arithmetic before going to the first grade! Buy WHY? "Why," they might answer, "because I want my child to get a 'head start!' I want him to learn a little faster — and not just be an 'average' child! "
What a PITY it is that thousands of little children are warped and twisted into all sorts of moral and mental shapes by conceited and vain parents who are full of ego and selfishness!
Parents who teach their children these things prior to their first year in school are certainly in the minority. But in a far greater minority are those who teach their children the MOST IMPORTANT THINGS OF ALL — HOW TO LEARN!
Your child does not need to know the alphabet, or how to count, or how to spell before being registered in a competent school. But your child does need to know HOW to learn when he gets there!
Make no mistake! The greatest key to learning is DISCIPLINE! A disciplined mind, an attentive mind, a thoughtful mind, a mind that never varies, that is always responsive, eager to learn, that is diligent to Do what the teacher says THIS is the mind that will really LEARN in school!
In the last number, we saw many of the right habits children should be taught in the home. Re-read that issue, be sure you really UNDERSTAND it, and that you are beginning to APPLY it in your own home! Then realize HOW the habits of COMING when called, of LISTENING to instructions, and answering correctly, will stand your children in good stead in the classroom.
It is only by teaching your child the real meaning of DISCIPLINE, and how to be self-disciplined that he will become a really "good" student!
You don't need to teach him how to read — you need to teach him to LISTEN TO THE TEACHER! You don't need to teach him how to count — you need to teach him to LISTEN TO THE TEACHER!