"New Term-new edition of the JPS newspaper. Last term saw the first edition of "The Juice on JPS" published. The first ever newspaper club at JPS was born. The children drawn from years 4,5and 6 had a taste of the trials and the euphoria of bringing out a newspaper. This term we aim to be more realistic about it with the children being on google docs, doing the stories on time working on deadline etc. Watch this space for more on this as the newspaper team evolves." This is what I started writing about the newspaper club I started at school. Then the post got abandoned as we worked further on the project. The kids are lovely very talented and smart but I see just one problem- the lack of commitment and more importantly the fact that nobody not even the parents, enforces the value of it.
I see this as a general state of affairs among all our kids here in Dubai. They are very pampered and cossetted. Either their parents do it for them or teachers or some adult. They have no idea about the consequence of things and I feel the lesson sooner learnt, the better. This is where I agree completely with Amy Chua author of the "Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother". She has put forth the idea that the more the children are challenged the better they perform and that their self confidence grows with each battle won. Life is tougher in some ways now. Being good is not enough- one needs to be excellent to achieve anything
.
I think we all need to drop the idea of celebrating every scrawl our children do and urge them to reach for the stars in their chosen field. Demanding excellence from oneself is perhaps the best competitive edge we can give them in the life's journey.
Unfortunately our school systems now are concentrating on building average kids because they teach them it is "OK" if they have not achieved a goal. I feel that concept has gone too far and the children have now begun to accept "OK" as their objective not demand excellence from themselves. Tomorrow's leaders and achievers are those who will throw "OK" out of the window and concentrate on doing their job to better than the best of their ability.
I hope that this term the "Newspaper Club" at JPS demands and achieves that excellence and that we are able to help this bunch of students have that wonderful experience, that of creating a truly excellent product.
I see this as a general state of affairs among all our kids here in Dubai. They are very pampered and cossetted. Either their parents do it for them or teachers or some adult. They have no idea about the consequence of things and I feel the lesson sooner learnt, the better. This is where I agree completely with Amy Chua author of the "Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother". She has put forth the idea that the more the children are challenged the better they perform and that their self confidence grows with each battle won. Life is tougher in some ways now. Being good is not enough- one needs to be excellent to achieve anything
.
I think we all need to drop the idea of celebrating every scrawl our children do and urge them to reach for the stars in their chosen field. Demanding excellence from oneself is perhaps the best competitive edge we can give them in the life's journey.
Unfortunately our school systems now are concentrating on building average kids because they teach them it is "OK" if they have not achieved a goal. I feel that concept has gone too far and the children have now begun to accept "OK" as their objective not demand excellence from themselves. Tomorrow's leaders and achievers are those who will throw "OK" out of the window and concentrate on doing their job to better than the best of their ability.
I hope that this term the "Newspaper Club" at JPS demands and achieves that excellence and that we are able to help this bunch of students have that wonderful experience, that of creating a truly excellent product.
