At every teacher-parent connect program, I hear parents bragging about their children and their accomplishments. If one parent talks about her son playing the guitar, then another parent brags about her daughter can play the piano and also enrolled in a math camp. In today’s world, conversations between parents that involve bragging are all-too-common. Every parent wants his or her kids to feel successful and happy. But with these lofty dreams that parents have for their child, it’s often seen that the child has to strive extra hard to make their dreams a reality. But the rat race and the competitive nature of today’s world, also mean the child is overburdened with exams, projects, and evaluations. He/she is seen preparing for this for many years – experiencing exams year after year and being put into the grind. This leads to intense frustration and turns them into rebels and they do not want to want to work towards their goal anymore. This becomes challenging for parents and teachers to reach that milestone successfully. So how can we help kids who experience this?
Preparation for college planning and competitive exam preparation needs to occur throughout the secondary stage of school. Teachers, Parents, or any other adult who is connected to the student play a critical role in a child’s education. It’s a popular misconception that children’s education is the sole responsibility of schools, but research has shown that education is most effective when parents and schools work together. We know it can be overwhelming and confusing for parents or guardians to see how they can empower their child to be college-ready and successful in life.
Enter another scenario – in teens, hormone levels are raging; it takes little for them to get jumpy or excited. Risky behavior is part and parcel to varying degrees for most kids in that age bracket. This leads to them making some ill-advised decisions on their goals.
How can we address this as educators?
STEP1: Identify your aspirations and passion
At Aurinko Academy, using our experience and expertise we have designed a special program suitable for students between 9th and 12th grades that will help them reach their true potential. We start the engagement with our children with the “Passion2Career” program, an in-depth Transformative, Self-Awareness workshop for teenagers that results in building a 10-year Career Path connecting to his/her passion.
The workshop helps kids understand their passions with tips on how to follow them to fruition. At the workshop, our children will get the guidance to access their needs and goals. Once that is identified, the roadmap and the resolve will also be touched upon. It’ll be a very holistic approach to their future addressing their passions.
STEP2: Gather facts, recommendations, organize and then work on it
All days at school have a well-balanced mix of difficult and easy subjects. All our subjects are followed by compulsory laboratory sessions to ensure the child learns the theoretical concepts. A mentor program is established to ensure that a mentor works with a student throughout their school journey supporting the child to strengthen both emotional and academic quotients. Super Saturday, booster programs, and enriched learning programs coupled with experiential learning are designed to ensure that the student has a game plan designed to meet their goals.
A student portfolio is created for every student which has the complete record of the student – and has their Statement of Purpose (SOPs), goal sheet; milestones reached and what areas of improvement are highlighted, Aurinko Academic Rating (AAR) is recorded to see how the student is performing and what additional help is needed for the child to perform at their maximum potential. Setting priorities and ensuring every child is focusing on classes and grades are critical to success.
STEP3: Nourishing child’s interest recharges their batteries
Just because the core of a child’s schedule is dedicated to classes and studying, it doesn’t mean those should be the only items. It is important to rest and recharge their batteries – that is why we recommend setting a portion of time and investing it in extracurricular activities. Whether it is sports, gym, art, drama, poetry, reading, book clubs, science labs, debate, etc, every child has to be a member of a couple of clubs compulsory at school – this ensures that natural love for learning and inquiry is established within the child and they learn their concepts by conducting experiments and building models.
Aside from doing things that they love and relaxing in the process, there’s an added benefit to this: children will have met new people and widened their circle of acquaintances.
STEP4: Start building your resume
It’s important that the child starts building their resume early, so internship and volunteering in a nonprofit organization is a part of the program. With these programs, we don’t let the child lose sight of their goal and are constantly encouraged to be working towards their goal.
A true partnership with the entire ecosystem of parents, counseling agencies, new-age companies, and partners enables the school administration to help our children achieve their goals matching their passion and aspirations. At Aurinko Academy, we welcome partners to work with us on this journey.
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