Respect is arguably the most important character trait you can teach your children before they step foot inside a classroom. Respect will build bridges and the absence of it creates wars. It is a fundamental value human beings need to function properly in every aspect of life.
A highly effective classroom is one that functions with routines and systems to maximize children’s intellectual, social, and emotional growth. The most skilled educator will not be efficient if students are not equipped with the foundational skill of following directions. As a parent, you play a major role in instilling this characteristic. For instance, newborns learn routines at a very early age. When they cry, their guardians feed and soothe them. Once that happens the wailing typically ceases. In essence, parents are a child’s first regulators. Early on, guardians are in powerful positions to assist their children with regulating their emotions. This is at the core of following instructions because the infants begin to understand how to respond to authority. From that point, they learn proper manners and character traits from the adults they are surrounded by. Those grown-ups are the village that represent the paintbrush that will either paint a child into a masterpiece or a mess.
As a former educator and school administrator, I guarantee that if teachers have classrooms full of students who respect authority and follow instructions, they will have a high probability of success as educators. In essence, in order for your child to have access to a better education, a large part of it will be based on the groundwork you lay at home years before your child enters a classroom.
Berwick Augustin is the founder of Evoke180, a leading publishing company that also specializes in Haitian-Creole translations. He is an educational consultant and keynote speaker who embodies two decades of experience as a writer, teacher, and assistant principal. Berwick is the author, most recently, of bilingual books, Days, Months, and Seasons in Haitian-Creole, The Haitian-Creole Alphabet-and 1803 The Haitian Flag.