Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Pause to Ponder: Are extra lessons Necessary for School Children?

I came across this topic on Nairaland and it kept me glued to my computer screen reading the readers opinions on the subject.  After going through some of the posts, it occured to me is we had ever paused to ponder whether indeed extra lessons for school children are indeed necessary.  I look at it from my own child's  perspectives.  The school closes 1pm, he stayed back for lessons organised by the school authorities till 3pm, then his class teacher charges me extra amount for giving him extra coaching again, and when he get home, I got another teacher waiting 3 times in a week. So, it got me thinking whether indeed all those are really necessary?
Come to think of it, here in Abuja, we pay a lot to send this children to schools as schooling here are highly expensive. Now, it got me thinking again, with such high amount of money, why the need of paying more money for extra coaching.
There was a time I shun extra coaching by his class teacher, I remember that at the end of that term, his performance reduced considerably, and I still believed it was deliberate sabotage to make me realise the ward really need extra coaching.
There was a time I also noticed that my son doesnt like going to school, and I discovered the hour they spend at school is long.  School children go in the morning and come back as late as 5pm. In our days we closes by 1pm and straight we go back home, then we go back to school in the evening for games at our own volition.
The present ongoing are however the fault of some of nowadays parents. They prefer to leave their child in the hands of their teacher to hold them for them like a nanny till when they will close in the office, and from then on, the school authorities invented the extra school lessons to keep them at bay since they see most of the parents prefer to have their ward stay back in school till evening, and as if that was not enough, the respective class teacher also creates their own private lessons.
In conclusion, so, unless your ward are short in certain areas of subject, they dont need extra coaching.  Children needs rest, they need to play as playing is part of learning. They needs to inter mingle with other children. If you indeed needs to occupy them, let it be on some other areas of learning like music, religions, games, sports etc. Pause and ponder over this.