Is your child lowering his school performance alarmingly? It is a signal that both parents and teachers must learn to identify, at home and at school. There are many causes that may be behind this problem and the first thing is to identify it. Of course, each case is unique, since no two situations are the same. Here are some guidelines that can help you decipher what is happening to your child:
LOW SELF-ESTEEM
When boys and girls have low academic self-esteem, they tend to accuse school failure. But what is low academic self-esteem? When children take bad grades for some reason, they begin to see themselves as less competent. The lack of interest in studies is simply an escape route: they prefer not to try it for not failing.
EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS
The anxiety. This is intimately linked to the previous point. We must not allow children to see themselves as losers; we have to show them that we love them and that their successes and failures at school will not change this. It is essential to motivate them to see that they can achieve it, that effort is achieved and that doing so will bring personal satisfaction.
BAD STUDY TECHNIQUES
You also learn to study. Creating a study habit and providing an adequate environment for it is essential. Also, they should not see “doing homework” as something negative or a punishment. Encourage them and do not quarrel. If you are tired do not let them leave, help them: get with them patiently, even if they complain you have to help them and motivate them until they finish their homework, which will directly affect them in better grades. Processing is not an option!
DIFFICULTIES IN ATTENTION
Sometimes, not being able to concentrate is the main problem. Not being able to focus their attention on the task, they will not be able to build knowledge and learning’s. You have to train concentration, and a very good technique is “time-boxing”. It establishes short times (20 minutes) of maximum concentration.
As soon as those 20 minutes are over, there are 5 rests, where you can get up, drink water and be distracted. When you return to “ring the bell”, you must focus again for 20 minutes. This technique guarantees good results and promotes concentration. From there, you can increase your time to focus attention little by little and it will be reflected in the grades and in general, in the school performance.
LEARNING DIFFICULTIES
In this sense we can find dyslexia, ADHD, lack of motivation, etc., problems that directly affect school performance. How to identify it? If you see that it is harder for the child to learn than others, following the instructions for anything is always a problem, if it is blocked because he does not know how to start a task, if the reading is a great effort or if his letter is very messy and not very understandable … With the appropriate attention both at school and at home, these difficulties are totally surmountable, but it is essential to make an early detection of them and treat them properly.
It is essential to work together with teachers and teachers to face these difficulties in the best way and not having repercussions on their grades.
FAMILY DIFFICULTIES
Children learn everything and this directly affects their school performance. When there are arguments between the parents or they are in divorce proceedings, the children can feel a sense of loss and worry about being abandoned. In addition, they can feel responsible for divorce: the feeling of guilt is the protagonist in this case.
When there is violence in the family there is a clear symptom: children are not able to concentrate because as soon as they try, they return to their heads the discussions or recent situations, unpleasant experiences that cause them a lot of stress. In this case, the most advisable thing is to take the child to a psychologist to receive the necessary tools to deal with family problems.
What are the reasons for the school performance failure of our children?
The school failure has become one of the great workhorses of our country. Not in vain the percentage of students who leave school prematurely is above 20%. But, why? What are we doing wrong? Why are our children demotivated?
The statistics that year after year elaborate in Brussels on the school failure in Europe are frankly pessimistic with respect to Spain, since according to these data we are at the head of the countries with the highest rates of school failure and early school leaving. There is a certain tendency to put the full weight of ‘blame’ on the education system, is this correct?
It is correct as long as when referring to the Educational System we do not direct our blaming eyes only to the school and the teachers because when we talk about the Educational System we give less importance to the most important word: SYSTEM and there we all have to a greater or lesser extent our degree of responsibility: teachers, families, administration, etc. Let’s not forget that the heart of an Educational System is the values of society. For this reason, a school failure is a social failure.
What is, in your opinion, the objective causes that in Spain we have these high rates of school failure?
There are numerous causes that cause us to have such high rates of school failure. I list some:
- Difficulties of the students: a high percentage of cases of school failure is due to difficulties such as dyslexia or attention deficit. Hence the importance of its early detection.
- Socioeconomic difficulties: It should be noted that there are studies that reveal a direct relationship between the socioeconomic level of families and the performance of children in school.
- The lack of complicity enters the family and the school. We must act together to form a true educational team.
- The instability of the System subject always to the political swings. We cannot live in a permanent reform of the System. We need a basic consensus, a long-term strategy and a lot of patience.
- In essence we are still installed in our own system of the industrial age but we live in a changing, globalized and highly complex world that demands innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. We need a transformation of the system to help us in this task.
- We seek immediate results to combat school failure and this leads us to take improvised measures that do not allow us to move forward.
- Pedagogical causes: ignorance of study techniques, etc.
- Other causes: the selection and training of teachers, excessive bureaucracy, the crisis of authority, etc.
- There are experts who say that in Spain, in compulsory education, too much is suspended, and this prevents students from progressing towards post-compulsory education. Do you agree with it?
I do not think that it will be suspended too much and we will have to analyze what we are doing wrong so that these students do not progress towards this post-compulsory education. What we cannot allow is that in compulsory education you can pass the course with a large number of suspended subjects … what message are we transmitting to our students?
