Academics

One of the primary reasons parents send their children to private school is for the individual attention students receive. Private schools can provide that sort of attention because their class sizes are small. Small class sizes work. Small class sizes are one of the main reasons you send your child to private school. With that in mind, let's look at why small class sizes are so important.

1. There's nowhere to hide in a small class.

Imagine your child in a large high school class of 30-35 students. She's not good at math. Most of the students in her class don't understand math and could care less about it. So your daughter hangs out in the back of the room, keeps quiet, and tries to pay attention. The distractions and cutting up around her mitigate against any meaningful learning. Consequently, your daughter falls further and further behind in math. Sadly, public school class sizes increase as school districts struggle with budget deficits. As a result, class sizes of 30-35 students are common.

Contrast that learning environment with 12-14 students seated around a Harkness Table in a boarding school. A Harkness Table is an oval table. The teacher sits at the table with his students. This arrangement places students in a situation where they have no choice but to engage and interact with each other and with their teacher. A Harkness table creates a climate for learning.

This video discusses teaching in large versus small classes.

Implicit in the

The college admissions scandal of 2019 proved that cheating is endemic throughout the secondary and tertiary levels of education. Nor is cheating restricted to college admissions tests and applications. We find examples of it in the classroom, on term papers, projects, and more. I will omit a discussion of cheating in elementary school in this essay and cover it in another article.

In 2011, when I read about students paying another person to take their SATs, I was appalled. What were they thinking? And how did they pull it off? Looking back on my high school and university years, I realize now that it was tough to cheat in the 50s and 60s. That was because all of the examinations that I took required us to write out our answers in pen. We didn't have multiple choice exams. No punch cards. I did occasionally hear of students who wrote out formulas on the palms or who looked over at a neighbor's answer book. But that was about it. Fast forward to the age of smartphones, and cheating has gone digital.

This video explains what contract cheating is and how it works.

Our role as parents

I will confess that I was, and, indeed, still am, a somewhat naive parent. I assume good things will happen. I also believe that my children will do the right thing. For the most part,

Should you send your child to a school which prepares its students to take either the SAT or ACT? That's a decision which you will face when you evaluate schools on your shortlist. At that point, you will have to choose schools which teach to the test or progressive schools which do not.

Schools which offer SAT or ACT preparation spend two or three years preparing their students to take those examinations in their senior year. In addition, most of these schools will offer Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Progressive schools prepare their students for college with experiential learning and the development of portfolios demonstrating academic accomplishments. Naturally, each educational approach has its proponents and its opponents.

Some people think that good test scores on standardized admissions tests are the only way to get into a competitive college such as Harvard or Princeton. The reality is that these days, college admissions departments look at much more than test scores when determining which applicants to admit.

Background: History of the SAT and ACT

The SAT, or Scholastic Aptitude Test as it used to be called, has been around since 1926. A Brief History of the SAT explains how the SAT evolved from an Army IQ test to a college admissions test. The original idea behind that college admissions test was to level the admissions playing field by evaluating scholarship students seeking admission to Harvard. Back in the early part of the 20th-century, the elite New

It doesn't matter what grade your child is in or, for that matter, if she has not even started formal schooling. We parents are responsible for enriching our children's education. We are responsible for expanding our children's horizons. We are responsible for showing and explaining things, concepts, and places they have never thought of. What follows is my roadmap for enriching your child's education. While I am not a psychologist, I have raised four amazing children following the principles which I lay out in this essay. I was raised this way. So was my late wife. We knew our method worked.

The Early Years

Playing classical music and reading are the foundations of an infant's education as far as I am concerned. I never believed that classical music made my children smarter. Indeed, The Mozart effect: Classical music and your baby's brain debunks that notion. But I do know that the music of Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, and Beethoven soothed my girls when they were infants. Furthermore, I continue to hear from listeners at the classical music radio station with which I am affiliated about how our classical music programming lulls their children to sleep.

In this video, Erica Goms fromeHow Health discusses how cognitive development in babies can be stimulated by simply playing with the baby and showing them toys.

Reading to your child develops her imagination. Those books which you read over

Editor's note: I asked the experts at Noodle Pros to show us how to improve verbal scores on one of the most widely-used private school standardized admissions tests, the SSAT. I am most grateful to Rebecca Scott, Clarissa Constantine, Travis Chamberlain, Karen Lister, Loren Dunn, Jonathan Arak, Garrick Trapp and Neil Seltzer for their invaluable advice and expertise. ~Rob Kennedy

1. Make learning vocabulary a family competition.

Pick two to five words a day and keep track of who in the family uses the words correctly the most. Players get extra credit for using 2 or more words in one sentence. The more students can hear words in context, the better they will be able to remember the meaning. Let your child choose the prize for the week's winner. To improve reading skills, have children read short online articles to you and explain what they mean. Ask what the main idea is and ask how the main idea is supported. - Rebecca Scott, 17 Years Tutoring

2. Study root words.

You may not know what malfeasance is, but if you recognize 'mal' you'll know that it has a negative connotation - Clarissa Constantine, 18 Years Tutoring

3. Create a word journal.

You don't have to know a new word every time you hear it, but you should write it down and then create a flashcard for each word. Memory tricks are helpful. Example: The mean truck driver was feeling truculent. - Travis Chamberlain, 15 Years Tutoring