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Home > School Life > Parent Perspectives: School is for Parents, Too SCHOOL IS FOR PARENTS, TOO I've noticed that when most people write reflective articles about New Morning School, they write about how the school taught their children this or that, and how New Morning School provided the best environment enabling their children to learn and grow. I, too, have had a similar experience, only I have something else to add to the picture. Our family has been involved with New Morning School for twelve years. John, a freshman at Salem High School, began at New Morning School in the Me and My Shadow program. Heather also has been at New Morning from a ‘ripe young age' and is now enjoying being one of the middle school students. I believe NMS has been the optimal environment for their education. They have not only learned reading, writing and arithmetic, but also how to prioritize their day, be independent problem solvers, and work cooperatively. I have watched my children grow and mature from needing guidance throughout the day to seeing them guide others. Yes, New Morning School has been great for my children, but the school has also provided a great learning environment for me. When I started aiding, I found that I loved working with kids. I aided as much as I could just to be involved. Once Heather entered preschool, I could aid every day in the preschool/primary. Eventually, I helped make lesson plans with the preschool teacher and could substitute when she was absent. I was in heaven. I felt perfectly at home in this educational setting. As my children got older I could help at the school even more, not only aiding in the classroom during the school year, but also teaching summer classes during Discovery Days. I had found my niche. As my children progressed through the grades, so did I. Again, I aided – this time in the elementary and middle school and was allowed to substitute teach. But then, in the fall of 2000, I was presented with a challenge. There were not one, but two openings for teachers in the elementary classroom. What a perfect position for me! Only, I hadn't finished my degree and was not certified. So I did what anyone would do in my situation; I went back to school. Since that fall, I've been attending Madonna University in their teacher education program. I have taken numerous classes in the education field, from reading development, to behavior management, to educational psychology, to the core classes like reading, science and math. What I have found from taking these classes is that New Morning School is teaching exactly the way students should be taught. Everywhere I look at New Morning I see exhibits of the optimal learning environment that I am being told about in the teacher education program. My classes stress the fact that teachers need to realize that students should be able to work at their own pace, something that is extremely difficult to do in a traditional classroom with thirty second-grade students. My classes have reinforced the idea that students learn best when they learn in cooperative working environments, where they can express their own ideas and listen to others express theirs. Additionally, my professors and textbooks teach that students learn best when they are actively doing something, and especially when that ‘something' is meaningful to them. Classes have pointed out that students also learn when they can teach others – where more able students can help less capable classmates. Further, my behavior management class emphasized the fact that most discipline problems occur when students don't feel like they belong in the classroom; students need a sense of community in order to take ownership of their behavior. In class discussions my classmates would argue that these situations all sounded so perfect on paper, but how could they work in real life. And, in every class discussion when this point was brought up, I would explain that yes, it does work and I would be happy to tell them where! Attending classes at Madonna helped me to realize that I already knew how to be a good teacher. While education classes could teach me theory and help me learn how to create a lesson plan, I had already learned from my experiences at New Morning School how children learn best and what makes a classroom environment conducive for creating independent thinkers. I have had the privilege of working in the New Morning School environment for the past twelve years; I feel I have been able to learn from the best. As I did student teaching last fall, I was able to take with me the experiences from New Morning School to help me be the best teacher I can be. Each Parent Perspective was written by a different New Morning School parent. The names of the parents and children have been changed to protect the confidentiality of parents and children. |
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