Molding Minds and Morals: The Crucial Home-School Connection
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Teachers are human beings, not spirits. They have emotions, feel pain, and sometimes struggle with temperament. Some teachers are endlessly patient, while others may find it difficult to manage certain situations. Like professionals in any field, they come from diverse backgrounds and possess different mindsets. Therefore, it is natural that at times some teachers might overreact, because they are human.
This reality underscores the vital role parents play in shaping the morals and character of their children. Teachers often do not have the luxury of time to focus on character development. If we are honest, about 70 percent of school activities revolve around the core curriculum, while the remaining 30 percent are extracurricular. Only a small portion of these extracurricular activities address character formation. Furthermore, very few schools have a dedicated curriculum for character development, and even when they do, it remains part of the smaller percentage of overall school activities.
This implies that parents bear the primary responsibility for instilling values and guiding the moral upbringing of their children. If you mold your child effectively at home, the teacher’s role becomes easier, as they can continue where you left off.
Parents should teach their children respect, honesty, and proper social behavior, particularly in public settings. Discipline should be applied when necessary. Sometimes, this may involve using physical measures judiciously, use Cain if occasion demands, as verbal correction alone might not suffice, even the bible instrurcts us not to spare the rod. As the child’s primary caregiver, you understand the type of discipline that will encourage proper behavior. When a child is disciplined appropriately at home, they are more likely to behave well outside, reducing unnecessary stress for teachers and aligning school discipline with parental expectations.
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Unfortunately, teachers today face increasing limitations in administering discipline and guiding character development. If parents neglect their role at home, the character they bring to school is often what the teacher receives and also send back. This is the “Garbage In, Garbage Out” scenario: a child may excel academically yet lack proper character. Therefore, discipline must begin at home.
