Mazel tov on graduation!
“No one in my family graduated,” you might say. But, as Sarah Radcliffe
notes in her article “Confessions of a PhD Graduate” we parents graduate each
year with PhDs- Parenthood Degrees. A parent of a
student who just completed 6th grade now has a PhD in raising a sixth grader.
A seventh grade parent has just received a PhD in parenting a 7th grader.
And, the 8th grade parent has graduated the middle school years, and is ready to
begin his/her studies on being a “freshie.” (While Radcliffe’s PhD is not
meant to be taken literally, we often wonder, one needs a licence to drive a
car, but no training nor certification to raise a child!) Children do not come with manuals, but
somehow we all eventually earn PhDs.
What do we need to do as
parents to earn these PhDs? We need to pass numerous tests along the way-
we “learn how to adapt to changing needs, acquired skills of patience,
compassion, boundary setting, teaching, communicating, problem-solving and
more. The parent has carried out research, conducted experiments, implemented
findings. She’s invented new
methodologies, interacted with the parenting community, and tutored younger
parenting students. With her new degree held proudly in hand, she’s fully
prepared to face the next stage of her career. Or so she thinks.”
One might imagine that
after parenting your first sixth grader, your second one would be a cinch. Or,
you have parented a high school student before- so no worries- you have this
down pat!! As Radcliffe writes, “After receiving my PhD, I continued to work in
my chosen field of parenting. I was much more knowledgeable about child
development, human relationships, and parenting strategies, so I eagerly looked
forward to the next phase of my work...Little did I know how unready I was.”
Unfortunately, no two
children are alike and each parent needs to receive an “individualized
curriculum” designed for each child. No matter how much knowledge we
have, as parents, we find that we will always have questions and hardly ever
have all the answers.
So, we learned that even
though our first middle schooler did very well studying independently, the 2nd
middle schooler needed us to hold his/her hand for every exam throughout the
year. While my first middle schooler, needed me to sit by her side each
night and review her homework, my second one
just needed me to ask her, “Did you do your homework?” And, while, my second middle schooler had
wonderful social interactions and no social “drama” at all, the third one
needed constant guidance when it came to navigating friendships. While I
installed a filter on all my middle schoolers’ phones, my middle child tried
every which way to get around that filter, while I did not need to be that
vigilant with the others. Phew! How many
PhDs do we need to earn?
Actually, we only needed
to earn one PhD. What did that PhD training teach us that can help us in our
parenting? To greet challenges with an open mind, to remain flexible and to
expect the unexpected. Most importantly, we have learned to “observe and
adjust.” We have learned that we can
never stop learning. And, who have been
our professors? Our children, of course. They have taught us all it takes to
parent them effectively.
As educators, we too
have been learning how to educate effectively from our children. As it
says, Taanit 7a:
והיינו דאמר ר' חנינא
הרבה למדתי מרבותי ומחבירי יותר מרבותי ומתלמידי יותר מכולן
And this is what Rabbi
Ḥanina said: I have learned much from my teachers and even more from my
friends, but from my students, I have learned more than from all of them.
By careful observations
and interactions that are absolutely unplanned, we learn from our students.
By listening carefully to what they are often not even verbalizing aloud,
we can learn how to be more effective teachers. By allowing our students to
teach us about what they need, we become more responsive to their needs.
As parents, we are the master teachers in our children’s lives, and we
learn each day from our “students.”
I would like to also
take a moment to thank the Yavneh middle school students who have taught me a
tremendous amount this year through offering their insights, opinions, and
conversations to me on a daily basis.
So, congratulations to
us all on this year’s PhD! We worked hard and earned it! May we utilize our doctoral degrees to be
“research scientists,” constantly observing and to never stop learning!
Advisory Update:
Sixth Grade: Students
created a success guide for incoming sixth grade students based on what they
learned this year. They also had a session on preparing for summer, focusing on
summer safety. They then spent a morning on their end of the year
Advisory finale- where they engaged in team building activities.
Seventh Grade: Students created a time capsule which “encapsulated” all
that they had learned and gained this year, to be opened in 2029!
Eighth Grade:: While our 8th graders were not here this past week, their final advisory session was an incredible opportunity to meet with Yavneh graduates (who just graduated 12th grade) about what high school is really like.
