Here is an interesting article about micro-managing your kids, and why this is not a good thing.

Here is a link to the article called, "Parents, stop micro-managing your kids", which appeared in the Victoria Times-Colonist paper and written by Lisa Kadane, Calgary Herald.

Here is a quote from the article. "It's a sobering and startling look at how parents' well-meant intentions -- to help their kids in any way possible -- may actually be backfiring, instead creating a generation of kids who are depressed and anxious, who lack self confidence and coping skills."

It is a good article which kids should to bring to the attention of their parents, and the parents should read.

It's not enough to read and agree - yep, we are doing that. It would help if there was a parent-child action plan to free the child from the burden so freely given by their parents.

Good listening...

Cheers - Mike

After watching my son in his first year of high school, I have learned about some kids in high school who are troubled teens and cope by hanging out with like-minded kids and miss an inordinate amount of classes. They have found high school to be more onerous that expected and don't have good coping skills. Almost always, their home life is not supportive. These kids are consistently missing classes. Some indicate a desire to go to a different, or alternative, school where there is much less structure. They also feel out of place in their current school. Some of these kids are damaged in one way or another. Many have suffered physical or emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is much more common. They don't know what to do and most don't ask for help, or indeed, don't know how to ask for help.

Many of these kids don't want to stay at home as there is no perceived support there. They begin to stay over at friend's houses for longer than one night at a time.

This kid underground is hard to spot. The kids are not on the street. They move from one house to another, often under the guise of staying overnight and they will tell the host parents that it is ok with their own parents, which usually is not true. The host parents have their own troubles with their own kids and in trying to win them over, accept the extended stay of their kid's friends. One kid I'm aware of is 18 and is about 14-15 emotionally and hangs out with the troubled 14-15 year old kids because that is where his head is at this time. That is where his comfort level is. Most, almost all, of these kids do drugs. They feel better, are happier, when on drugs. They hang out a lot at malls and stay there for hours on end. They do not have jobs of any kind and many steal money from parents and siblings. Most of these kids are not aggressive individually. In a group setting they are usually not aggressive but are louder and follow easily. They are susceptible to being recruited by drug dealers, who cruise malls looking for just these types of kids.

These kids are our future high school dropouts. and for a few, our future drug dealers and hookers.

What to do? Get Parents/Guardians involved - BUT! I talked with one single parent and she advised not to get Children and Family Services involved because it would look bad on her and she has 2 other younger kids to look after as well. So the oldest (15) troubled boy is left to fend for himself. And he left home and is one of the invisible kids who stays with friends here and there and misses classes and exams at school.

Great...so some parents don't want to get involved helping their kids when everything they have tried doesn't work. Most parents are too close to be objective, and fall back to yelling and berating the kid. That is why an outside person can be of great help. The person can listen objectively to both parents and teen and recommend a course of action. Children and Family Services people have the expertise, if only they were called. School councilors are another great resource who for the most part are ignored by parents even if the teen has asked them for help.

This problem cannot be fixed overnight, but I believe it can be fixed.
As usual though, parents really need to help too. The resources are there, the kids want help - who is holding the bag?

Well, we could start by building the self esteem of these kids. We could start by providing a safe place where these kids could gather and just be themselves. We could provide a kid hostel for kids who don't want to live at home, and don't want to live on the street. We could create a Facebook friends page in their support. We could create local YouTube videos on coping strategies and other topics relevant and appropriate to these kids. We could...

Time is slipping by and the kids are still out there. Perhaps we could start with just one kid. Then that teen tells another, and perhaps word of mouth will help create a new fostering, helpful environment for these kids. But, they still need a place to go to, other than a mall.

Is there a solution? Of course, but it is not a single solution. It is a multi-part approach. One student - many resources.

First things first. Most of these kids have given up, and I don't say that lightly. We need to turn that around, and we can, if we care enough. Will the teen listen? With the right, or appropriate approach, I believe the answer is yes. That means being open-minded, and start with open-ended statements and questions. A smile and a soft voice go a long way too.

This topic can go on and on but let's start here and add to it as we go along.

Good listening...

Cheers - Mike

For many students the transition from junior high to high school is not a happy one. Once the initial newness wears off, the reality of new teachers and teaching styles, more homework and pressure from the grade 11 and 12 students takes its toll on the grade 10 students.

Grades start to fall, classes are missed on a regular basis, depression sets in, headaches start, body aches are common, and drug use, to forget, begins.

How can this be turned around?

Comments?

Stay safe...

Cheers - Mike

There are many different sites on the Internet that can assist students, educators, and parents with research, homework, and curriculum design. Some of the best provide free reference materials and services. Here are ten reference sites you can use for your next project without any out-of-pocket costs:

BJ Pinchbeck's Homework Helper - BJ Pinchbeck's Homework Helper is one of the web's most comprehensive reference sites for students. The site links to nearly 1,000 quality sources of homework help and includes a brief description of each.

Infoplease - This free and respected reference site provides an encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, and other reference works. Infoplease is also a good place to find biographies, timelines, information on current events, and homework help.

Fact Monster - Fact Monster is an Infoplease site with a kid-friendly reference desk. Some of the subjects that can be searched on Fact Monster include people, sports, science, geography, history, world news, and timelines.

The Internet Public Library - The Internet Public Library (IPL) provides an enormous collection of reference materials for students, parents, and teachers. Visitors can browse through subject collections, explore reference works, read newspapers, magazines, or books, and get answers to questions from a real librarian.

World Digital Library - Supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, the World Digital Library (WDL) provides primary resources from countries all over the world to scholars, educators, and the general public. Resources are available in a multilingual format and cover a wide range of topics.

Library Spot - Created for educators, students, librarians, and other researchers, this free virtual library brings the best of online reference tools to one easy-to-navigate site. All of the content on Library Spot is hand-selected and reviewed by the site's editorial team

RefDesk - This award-winning, family-friendly reference site serves as a fact checker for the Internet. Offerings include multiple search engines, dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, periodicals, biographies, news sources, weather sources, articles, pictures, and much more.

The Educator's Reference Desk - Created specifically for educators, this online reference desk offers more than 2,000 lesson plans and 3,000 links to education information. The Educator's Reference Desk also provides a decade's worth of answers to questions that have been sent to the AskERIC service.

Virtual Reference Shelf - The Virtual Reference Shelf offers a selection of high quality Internet resources compiled by the Library of Congress. Links lead to reference works, calendars, calculators, consumer information, directories, biographies, and subject-specific information.

INFOMINE - INFOMINE is a librarian-built reference site for students at the university level. A few of the topics covered on INFOMINE include business, economics, government, agricultural sciences, medical sciences, social sciences, math, computing, and the arts.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

In a previous article I talked about homework stress.

Here is another article which tells the story of a Calgary family that signed a no homework agreement with the Calgary School Board.

Here is a quote from the article linked below, "Tom Milley was frustrated by the amount of homework given to his children.
A Calgary family caught between busy careers, hectic school schedules and extracurricular activities has sought relief by signing a contract with their school to ban homework."
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Family+signs+homework+with+Calgary+school+board/2240268/story.html

For those who are not lawyers, here is a good balanced article from Anna-Liza Kozma, a writer with the CBC.
A quote, "Childhood passes quickly. And so do sunny days.
That means, in our house, sunshine trumps homework pretty much every time."

Here is the link to Negotiating an end to the homework debate.

Good teaching...Good listening...

Cheers - Mike

The first is about the anti-bullying legislation being considered. Here is an Edmonton Journal link to the teacher's response. On the other hand, here is a different aspect about the anti-bullying issue from the CBC called, Bullying is a public health issue.
And finally, here is an article from the Alberta Government website called, "Albertans urged to take a stand against bullying".

The next is about the school board and the 2009-2010 budget. Here is a quote from the article called, "Edmonton school boards approve ‘restrained’ budgets."

"Edmonton Public Schools officials described this year’s budget as “restrained” and said the goal was to preserve its core services to students."

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On a slightly different note, the Premier of Alberta, Ed Stelmach, has setup a Twitter account to see your feedback on a variety of issues. Here is a quote from the article linked to below, "This is an opportunity for all Albertans to ask me what's on their minds...".

The CBC Twitter article is here.

The Premier's YouTube main page is here, and his Twitter account is here. There are more links on his website here.

Good teaching...Good learning...

Cheers - Mike

Looking for free educational software that can help increase the productivity of your classroom? The Internet is a great place to find free, downloadable software for teaching, collaboration, online conferencing, and much more. Here are 15 education-related software products to try throughout the school year:

Mindomo - Mindomo is free mind mapping software that can be used to organize and iron out ideas. It works extraordinarily well for classroom projects.

GeoGebra - This award-winning math software is designed for all education levels. The software is built to handle variables, vectors, points, derivatives, and much more.

WordWeb - WordWeb is a free English dictionary and thesaurus that can define words in almost any program. The software works as a thesaurus and dictionary for British, American, Canadian, Indian, Australian, and global English.

Zoho - This site provides a suite of free tools that can be used for increasing productivity and organization. Within Zoho, users will find software for writing, spreadsheets, document management, notes, wikis, and much more.

Primap Software - The Primap Software features the MapCreator 2.0 for creating animated and standard maps. This software combines cartography and graphics programming for professional, high quality maps.

Celestia - Celestia offers free, 3D space simulation software that allows you to explore the solar system, stars, galaxy clusters, and more.

VoiceThread - VoiceThread provides free technology for sharing videos, documents, and images in a collaborative way. With VoiceThread, you can present collaborative slide shows that can be commented on with voice, text, audio, and video.

Question Writer - The Question Writer site provides free basic quiz writing software that can be used for creating multiple choice quizzes. The quizzes can be printed or published online with reports emailed to you.

iTALC - iTALC is a powerful didactical tool that can be used for viewing and controlling computers in a network. The software provides remote support capabilities, monitoring, real-time demos, texting capabilities, and computer control.

SugarLabs - Used daily by about one million children, SugarLabs is a great place for finding free educational software. The activities on SugarLabs are offered in 25 different languages and cover a wide range of subjects.

Anki - Anki is flashcard software for studying and learning educational material. This software allows you to review material from anywhere and split cards among students.

Yugma - Yugma is free web conferencing software that allows you to conference with up to 20 people at once. With this software, you can have online meetings, desktop sharing, real-time collaboration, and more. Yugma works with Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.

Audacity - Audacity provides open source sound editing and recording software for Mac, Windows, Linux, and other operating systems. Teachers can use this software to record live audio, convert sounds to digital files, edit, mix, and change any sound.

Phun - Phun is free gaming software that can be used to help students understand and appreciate physics. This fun-based learning software allows users to create machines, games, and much more.

Sheppard Software - Sheppard Software provides a large suite of software designed specifically to aid schools and teachers in geography, math, and vocabulary. Throughout this site, teachers will also find free online games for all subjects.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online classes for OnlineClasses.org.