Teaching Assistants - The valuable resource that is overlooked.

Classrooms today, particularly the lower grades have hidden gems called the Teaching Assistants. Sometimes, these are teachers in training but more often than not mothers of school age children who take up a job to match their children's school hours. Talk to them, and they will tell you that they stay, because they enjoy the company of the kids, long after their own grow up. But they are not given any credit for the work they do, simply because they do not have the requisite degree. This is in spite of the fact they spend far more time with each child, and will remember what each child is doing or has done. The teacher dumps a whole lot of responsibility on them, and some are far more experienced in the classroom than the newly qualified teacher.

I am now beginning to believe that a good Teaching Assistant can help your child far more than the teacher. In fact in some classes the kids have a far warmer relationship with the TAs than with the teacher. Unfortunately, the TAs have little or no room to take any decisions or even comment, come what may. This brings the classroom to a standstill.  I have seen young teachers with hardly any experience speaking very rudely to the TA who have at least 6 plus more experience than them. This ruins the atmosphere in the class and the children are affected. The TAs are expected to shoulder responsibility, but get no share of the praise. With the concept of streaming the class teacher brushes off parent questions with a simple "I don't know" which I think is not acceptable. Our teachers did not have assistants and they had 65 children in each class, and they knew the children. Now teachers crib if there are more than 25 and claim that they cannot manage even with assistants.

The school managements have to have some kind of guidelines for division of responsibility and weightage for experience. The teaching assistants must get more credit for all the work they put it for it is they who are the unsung heroes of the classroom.

The thin blue/red/purple line. What is a challenge and what is pressure?

For NYPD the Thin Blue Line was a phrase used by officers to describe an unwritten rule - not to rat on fellow officers who may have committed a crime. In other words it was a synonym for a cover up.An officer would retreat behind a wall of silence or simply not do the needful investigation if a fellow cop was a suspect, come hell or high water. I am using the phrase to mean the line between what educators call pushing and what is a challenge.
Now there are many schools of thought here. Many educators in the last decade have advocated strictly positive reinforcements messages to get the child to do what is required. But I feel that is not enough because it is like tarring everyone with same brush. Most kids today are far smarter than their parents and teachers in many ways and know when to push the right buttons. And we all have to admit that kids are hard work whether smart or not since they keep you off balance all the time. No day will be the same as the one gone by or the one that is coming. Now here is where the teachers come in. Before I make my point I must pause to say that being a teacher or a doctor can never be just a job or a career since both professions wield an enormous amount of influence on people's lives. A good teacher can make a child rise far above his or her intrinsic ability.  My problem is that most educators view this as just a another job. I feel if we give the children the opportunity to learn they will regardless This is an effort which the teacher has to put in. They have to get involved and they have to feel and they have to intuitively assess where the child is, to offer him or her better challenges. Self motivation is not something a six year old or even a ten year old has, somebody has to do it for them. If parents and educators wait for this it may be too late.

Unfortunately, to cover up what they are lacking, there is an astonishing amount of stonewalling by the schools. They seem to want to bring everything done to the lowest common denominator and will try as much as they can to avoid or discourage questions. I can hear the collective gasp of outrage across the teaching community here and though I know some very good teachers the above is what perhaps most parents have come to experience. No supervisor or deputy head or principal will admit any wrong by the staff and yet nothing changes. What is worse they discourage the parents from expecting more from the child. Somewhere there seems to be a disconnect. Why is it so wrong to expect your child to work a little more than what is strictly required? Life is no ball game when they grow up and if they learn to give their best and expect no less effort from themselves then they will be better adults in society when they are older.

Take Amy Chua book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother". A lot has been said about her methods but if we look at it objectively it was just a memoir of her efforts and her mistakes. But there a big lesson in that for all parents. While genius come at a price it is not wrong to expect the best from your child. If we can find a method where we praise and reprimand equally and at the right time the kids actually respect and love you more. So Amy Chua's methods were definitely pressure but getting your child to buckle down and do some extra work every day, even if it is for 1/2 hour is not. I have personally seen the joy and the sense of achievement my daughter has when I do not let her give in when she finds something hard. So mums please do not listen to the teacher alone- sometimes your instincts work better. Besides no child comes with a handbook and every child has different abilities. Celebrate that and above all do not let them give up!!

Third country children- are they truly global or just lost

Dubai is a city of contrasts, a huge salad rather than a melting pot. It is a city where each community retains its identity and its ties while living together with others. So what happens to the children born here and who grow up here. Here is my take on their life as third country children. The children in Dubai grow up rather privileged. A mother once commented that when she takes her children back home, they come across very naive compared to the children there. The exact quote was "Dehatis in branded clothes" which translates as village bumpkins in branded clothes. In some ways it is very true since the majority of the children here have things done for them. It is a wonderful place for doing a lot of stuff but teaches very little in terms of life skills. Our children grow up sometimes very unaware of life. Also there is no sense of belonging in a way. The country they were born in and brought up in considers them aliens. The country whose passport they hold treats them like that. They have no flag to salute, no national anthem to sing. While one may argue that this is a great opportunity to transcend national borders, our children can do so only if this beautiful country was more of a melting pot. Instead it is like a giant salad, where each portion is distinct and untouched by the character and quality of the others. Perhaps one can go as far as to say that Dubai is home to various ghettos. Each nationality does not really mix with the others nor adopts any of the culture. Arabic should have been second language to these kids. Instead they barely know how to read and write and not speak it at all. What a tragedy this is!!Perhaps here is where we as parents need to stop and think whether we are truly giving our children the international experience. But I also feel that unless one learns to appreciate one's own culture and traditions one finds it hard to appreciate the other. What do we need to do to give our children a sense of identity and of belonging? I have still to find the answer. If only I can help my child to be part of the melting pot and fully appreciate our own culture will I feel my child is a global citizen, completely at ease with various nationalities and able to appreciate the similarities and accept the differences.