Twelve Activities to improve education. Part II
We listed three activities in part I of this article. Here are three more.
4 Coach for IOWA/ACT/SAT/—admission to a reputed University.
Every parent would dream of sending their child to a reputed university. Such universities would offer better carrer for their child, they also offer generous financial aids for deserving candidates. Getting admission in such universities entails lot of hard work and advance planning. Many of our students and parents are not aware of possible options available and problems faced for admission in good universities.
The situation will be worse if the parents are less educated or financially weak . They will not inquire about the requirements until it is very late. Timely guidance, advance planning and preparation will help a student in getting in to a reputed university and taking full benefits of generous financial aids that universities offer to bright candidates.
There are agencies that would do consulting for admission but only rich parents can afford to pay a big amount these consultants charge. Most of the parents from our community, cannot bear this extra burden. It will be nice if we can provide some counselling to such students. Even though a candidate may get counselor at their high school or in the universities they want to join but the time such counsellors can devote to each applicant is not enough.
Some well-educated community members should come forward, specialize for admission processes in some group of reputed universities and help these students.
5 Coach for competition ….like spelling bee, geographic bee, science fairs, and robotic teams.
Make every child a winner.
There are competitions held for students in every field of education, just like spelling bee there are competitions in geography, math, and science with very generous prizes. Apart from prizes and gifts, such competitions help a student in many ways, it increase their focus, give them fair idea on facing tough competition, empower them with self-confidence and inspire them to set goals and work hard to achieve these goals.
Talented kids from our community fail to fare well because they do not get proper environment, sufficient guidance, encouragement, support and adequate resource. A small example will make my point clear, the father of winner in 2012 spelling bee competition said “he started training her daughter when she was four years old, and printed 30,000 flash cards for her”.
6 Research/Study project.
Coach them. Nurture them. Inspire them.
Every child carries some fantasy about some scientific or artistic things around them. Give them projects to compile detailed report or do some research on subject of their fantasy, either for a summer vacation or as a long term activity spanning over years. Provide them with guidance, material support and encouragement. Such projects will develop their observation, data collection, analysis and creative writing skills. It will boost their confidence, self-image and will increase their problem solving skills. Guide them to work on current problems of the society and such project may lead them to highly beneficial community services or very impressive carriers as well.
