Alternative Schooling for your Child - Knowing the Basics
By Andrew Loh
Alternative schools have been one of the most liked and preferred
choices for parents, who seek non-traditional and unconventional
type of education for their children. In fact, alternative schooling
may provide a varied, at-the-home and broad educational experience
to your child. Here are some basic tips for the patents to know and
find if their children need an alternative approach to the present
children education system:
If you feel and perceive that your child is having some problems of
studying in his or her school:
-
Identify and detect the actual problem. Does the problem relate to
the classroom itself or is it something else? Gifted children often
find traditional classroom very difficult to attend and pay
attention to.
-
Check out your children' eating habit and sleep pattern - at times,
poor eating and sleeping pattern may affect your children's
classroom performance.
-
Help your children to develop a mindset that helps them to stay
focused in their classrooms.
-
Make your children develop a positive mindset about the classroom
and lessons.
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Set realistic goals and objectives like - ¡°You will need to finish
off the Math homework, before watching that movie on TV¡± or ¡°Finish
off that art work before playing video games¡±
-
Identify what makes your children, their strengths and weaknesses
and their overall attitude. This will help you know more about your
children and their mind.
-
Keep talking positive things to your children - ¡°You can do well¡±,
¡°You are really intelligent¡± and ¡°When you apply your mind, you can
be the first in your class¡±
Your child needs an alternative approach to traditional education,
when he or she finds it very cumbersome to perform better in their
classroom. There are a number of excellent alternatives to a
conventional classroom. Most of them offer a number of advantages
and benefits to your chidden.
Here are some of the perceived advantages and benefits of using an
alternative schooling approach to your children's education.
Advantages:
-
Extreme focus and concentration on children, who are academically
performing far below their abilities.
-
Helping those extremely gifted children, who may be facing problems
in their classroom.
-
Providing an easy to learn and compatible learning environment that
cajoles the children to learn and understand lessons faster and
quicker.
-
To provide an interactive mode of delivering lessons, so that the
child can also participate in the classroom.
However, like any other systems even this system has some
disadvantages linked to it like:
-
Expensive considering the special needs and requirements.
-
Lack of socialization among students.
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Some parents feel that this system is constricted, as there may not
be too many children in the classroom.
-
A radically different course structure that may deviate from the
normal.
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A very high level of competition that could be too overpowering for
some children.
Some common examples of alternative schools are:
-
Boarding or residential schools: A live-in type of alternative
school, where your child will stay and learn along with other
students.
-
Armed Forces school: Children, especially over the age of ten, can
study here to learn lessons in military discipline.
-
Private school: An expensive option that provides you higher quality
learning environment.
-
Christian school: This is a school that provides theology and
principle based education.
-
Montessori School: This is a well-known education model that relies
heavily on self-directed learning activities.
-
Carden schools: It is a kind of school that believes in the
principle that a phonetically based, language/arts curriculum is
essential for proper development children.
-
Core Knowledge schools: These schools believe that every child needs
to master an area of knowledge to become a successful person.
-
Progressive schools: Progressive school lays an emphasis on making
children learn on their own, with the teacher acting as a
facilitator.
-
Reggio Emilio schools: This school runs in a pleasing and
stimulating environment and it believes in providing an informal
type of education that includes speech, painting, modeling and
repetition of concepts.
-
Waldorf schools: These schools are committed in establishing a keen
sense of wonder, surprise and respect for learning.
What parents choose is up to their needs and requirements; it is
normal for every parent to choose home schooling as their first
option, as they can keep a watch on their children and study their
progress. Whatever you choose, you may need to ensure that your
children is looked after well and in a loving manner. You can even
consider enrolling your child back to the same traditional classroom
or school, once you confirm that your child has become capable
enough to compete with other children in the classroom and perform
better academically and scholastically.
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