考研阅读精选：父母的爱与孩子的成长
『人们常常将老师对孩子的教育放在孩子成长的首要位置，但父母的关爱与参与在孩子茁壮成长的过程中，也占据着举足轻重的地位。』How About Better Parents
父母的爱与孩子的成长
Nov 19th, 2011|from The New York Times
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IN recent years, we’ve been treated to reams of op-ed articles abouthow we need better teachers in our public schools. There’s no questionthat a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’sachievement. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: We needbetter parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education canalso make a huge difference in a student’s achievement.
How do weknow? Every three years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment, or O.E.C.D., conducts exams as part of the Program forInternational Student Assessment（PISA）, which tests 15-year-olds in theworld’s leading industrialized nations on their reading comprehensionand ability to use what they’ve learned in math and science to solvereal problems — the most important skills for succeeding in college andlife.
To better understand why some students thrive taking thePISA tests and others do not, Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the examsfor the O.E.C.D., was encouraged by the O.E.C.D. countries to lookbeyond the classrooms. So starting with four countries in 2006, and thenadding 14 more in 2009, the PISA team went to the parents of 5,000students and interviewed them “about how they raised their kids and thencompared that with the test results” for each of those years. Two weeksago, the PISA team published the three main findings of its study:
“Fifteen-year-old students whose parents often read books with themduring their first year of primary school show markedly higher scores inPISA 2009 than students whose parents read with them infrequently ornot at all. The performance advantage among students whose parents readto them in their early school years is evident regardless of thefamily’s socioeconomic background.
Schleicher explained to methat “just asking your child how was their school day and showinggenuine interest in the learning that they are doing can have the sameimpact as hours of private tutoring. It is something every parent cando, no matter what their education level or social background.”
Yes, students from more well-to-do households are more likely to havemore involved parents. “However,” the PISA team found, “even whencomparing students of similar socioeconomic backgrounds, those studentswhose parents regularly read books to them when they were in the firstyear of primary school score 14 points higher, on average, than studentswhose parents did not.”
The kind of parental involvementmatters, as well. “For example,” the PISA study noted, “on average, thescore point difference in reading that is associated with parentalinvolvement is largest when parents read a book with their child, whenthey talk about things they have done during the day, and when they tellstories to their children.” The score point difference is smallest whenparental involvement takes the form of simply playing with theirchildren.
Another study, called “Back to School: How parentinvolvement affects student achievement,” found something “somewhatsurprising,” wrote Barth: “Parent involvement can take many forms, butonly a few of them relate to higher student performance. Of those thatwork, parental actions that support children’s learning at home are mostlikely to have an impact on academic achievement at school.
“Monitoring homework; making sure children get to school; rewardingtheir efforts and talking up the idea of going to college. These parentactions are linked to better attendance, grades, test scores, andpreparation for college,” Barth wrote. “The study found that gettingparents involved with their children’s learning at home is a morepowerful driver of achievement than parents attending P.T.A. and schoolboard meetings, volunteering in classrooms, participating infund-raising, and showing up at back-to-school nights.”
To besure, there is no substitute for a good teacher. There is nothing morevaluable than great classroom instruction. But let’s stop putting thewhole burden on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parentscan make every teacher more effective. （649 words）
文章地址：http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-about-better-parents.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB#
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