For The Sake of Your Child—Please Don’t

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Please! Don’t Let it Happen to Your Child

We Still remember the event that happened quite a few years ago — We received a call from a parent inquiring if we could tutor her son – a high school senior, to prepare him for his final exam in Calculus-AB which was due in two weeks.

A two Week’s time span to prepare a student for Calculus exam is a very short notice. But, of course, it depends upon a student’s level of preparation. Anyway, we scheduled an appointment for the day after to assess and evaluate her son.

We were pleased to greet the mother and son at our Learning Center (we used to do ‘in-class’ tutoring that time). He was a pleasant kid — But, nervous and very tense.

The situation was like this:

He had earned a “D” in his midterm. His Finals were due in two weeks. And, his admission to a ‘desired’ school was dependent upon the outcome of the final.
Our assessment and evaluation showed that he was lagging far behind in the subject. — Actually, he had difficulty understanding the basic concepts of Algebra II—and, as for the concepts of ‘Limit’ and ‘Riemann sum’ (the very fundamental points to grasp before going into pre-calculus), he had no clue as to what I was talking about!

It was a sorry state. We felt the pain of the young man.

The mother was insisting that her son had to get an “A” in the finals, and we ‘must’ prepare him for the task.

Getting an “A” in the final exam aside, it was not possible for the him to understand, digest the basic concepts of calculus—,and the algebra part before that, and to do the needed practice to come up to the level of the course in just two weeks’ time. It was just not possible—for anyone to accomplish such a feat.

Even though our hearts were bleeding for him, we had to decline to accept the responsibility of preparing him and, somehow, make him get an “A”. We could teach and tutor the kid, but couldn’t make any guarantees.

We advised them not to go under the stress of grades at that point and offered our voluntary help to the kid.

But, the mother wanted a commitment to deliver an “A”. They left as we politely declined to take the responsibility.

Even today,we still remember the face of that student and wonder where the parents of that child had been until just two weeks prior to the Final Exam? Where were they when their child was going through classes — from Elementary to High School? Shouldn’t they have been keeping a tab on their child’s progress or, rather, lack of it? Weren’t they looking at the child’s report-cards, and attending the ‘Parent-Teacher’ meetings?

It was a sad state of affairs.

That was an extreme case. But we see a lot of similar neglects on part of otherwise caring parents. Sometimes, parents assume that just by sending their child to school their job is done and the school will take care of the teaching. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The teachers at schools are over-burdened with too many students and too much administrative work.

Further, unlike countries like China, the US education system is not geared to wait for a student and to bring the child up to the standards. The classes here keep on going forward as the ‘under-performing’ students keep on falling further behind.

As a matter of fact, it is up to the parents to remain vigilant and make sure that their child is not falling behind. If they envision a bright future for their children, they must get involved and make sure that their children go further ahead of their class standards.

Please, understand that learning, especially for subjects like Math, takes time. It takes years for a child to absorb the concepts and do enough practice to feel comfortable with any given problem within the scope of their studies.

It is simply impossible to cram all that knowledge in a short span of time. Let the child learn consistently, regularly and naturally — With enthusiasm.

Please, get involve with your child Early — Don’t let the child go under the stress.

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