Expecting More of Children

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at today's trend of low expectations from children and cites many examples of parents and educators coddling children. The paper discusses the damage done to children who are not pushed to meet reasonable goals. The author suggests some ways in which parents and educators can help children learn more and better and raise their achievement levels.

From the Paper:

"In her article "Students Can Do More: U.S. Adults Shield Kids from Tasks that Teach," Dorothy Rich suggests that, in general, teachers, parents and society as a whole expect far too little, in terms of skills, aptitudes, independence levels, and performance, from today's school-aged children. Skills and abilities that are typically expected of today's young students, at home, at school, and elsewhere, are often insufficiently demanding or challenging of them, as well as being too narrowly proscribed by age level or (perceived) ability. The result, as the author further suggests, is that today's school-aged children typically learn, inside and outside of school, only the minimum expected of them, and learn it within particular narrow and predictable environments, at that. Today's students are, therefore, not learning, doing, or attempting mastery of all that they might actually be capable of. Rich therefore asserts (and I agree) that expectations of school-aged children, from teachers, parents, and society as a whole, ought to be greater than they currently are, for the good of these children themselves, and for that of the society that they will grow up into."

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