The elephant that was not in the room

At a workshop last month, about 60 local educators studied what’s called “active learning.” The only thing missing at the workshop were the parents of children who are not being properly prepared for school.

“Listening all the time is boring,” Paula Collie, a retired Pittsylvania County teacher, said at the workshop. “(Active learning) really encourages the child to be an active participant in the learning process. If they learn to catch onto the concepts in kindergarten, then they will be prepared for the upper grades.”

That’s obvious, as is the fact that much of a child’s brain development occurs long before they ever darken a schoolhouse door.

“The brain is absolutely most active during the three first years of life than it’ll be the rest of your life,” said Martha Tucker, a DCC assistant professor and the coordinator of DCC’s early childhood program. “If we don’t reach children then, we miss a lot of time that they will later reflect on their learning.”

Trouble is, most teachers don’t get the opportunity to reach children in those first three years of life. Parents, not teachers, have the first and best opportunity to shape their children’s intellectual development. In some of the worst cases, schools are being asked to do for children what should have been done for them by their parents.

In this community, education is now widely regarded as a key component of the long-term effort to reinvent the local economy. It’s encouraging to hear that so many teachers are aware of the challenges facing young learners.

But instead of bringing teachers in for workshops, it might make more sense to hold workshops for local parents to get that important message out.

It’s easy to pay attention to SOL scores and dropout statistics and all the other measures of academic success and failure.

But that’s only part of the picture. For far too long, teachers — especially in the public schools — have taken a beating for the academic performance of students when they’re not with those kids during those crucial first few years of learning.

The recent active learning workshop no doubt did those educators in attendance some good, but it’s only part of the picture. The first, biggest and most important challenge is to get parents to understand what their role is in their children’s education.