Role of Parent
The most certain lesson from the 200 years of the current school education system is that parenting matters. Quality of parenting is the most critical determinant of children's scholastic success. No child succeeds in school years without loving, consistent, and long years of support from at least one adult; rarely, that support is beyond parents. The occasional great teachers only prove the rule of 'parents as unsung heroes' of school education.
In fact, across the world, governments and school administrators have forced 'unparentiing' of the students; parents are not to be trusted with their children's education! School education edges out the most well-educated parents also from the school education years of their children. Worse, our children are expected to be no better, wherever and however best they are educated; they won't be able to school their children! School education is such that it always undoes itself, we 'forget everything we study at school,' comprehensively and assuredly!
During the pandemic, online education has exposed it all - classroom teaching has little to cheer anyone, including teachers! With few exceptions, the record of student's achievement is underwhelming, and creating anxiety and stress even among five-year olds!
School education needs nothing less than revolutionary changes to ensure parents can play the role they must. This is critically important for every child and every teacher to succeed and for schools to succeed as the formal institution of education.
Parent Education
Unfortunately, school leaders and teachers have failed in educating parents to be as effective as educators. Parent education at school may have only hurt the cause. First, such education is almost entirely focused on enlisting and coercing parents to (blindly) support schools in doing their job better, such as urging parents to ensure homework completion, regular attendance, and providing necessary financial support beyond tuition fees, etc. Second, there is a homogenisation of parenting style and substance with sharing of 'best practices' - an antithesis to every family's uniqueness, and 'every child's peerless destiny.' To be accurate, there cannot be a universal prescription of 'tips/advice on effective parenting,' howsoever exhaustive and imaginative. The cutting edge of the impact of parenting is in its uniqueness. Every family is a complex of its own.
Parent education has to move out of schools. And it must also move away from narrow, generic parenting counselling and coaching.
Parenting in school years may be the most complex of adults' demands and needs comprehensive educational support. An education that significantly supports parents' development in EVERY 'subject' of K-8 education, quality of teaching, teachers, resources, and processes varies across schools. Children and communities mustn't pay for the ill-effects of such variations.
The Liberal School (TLS) is the world's first school for parents. Any family can join us for securing world-class education for their children. TLS offers the most comprehensive and world-leading education for parents. NO family and child will ever be left behind in the future.
Why doesn't TLS educate children?
Educating only children is the school's biggest blindspot, the reason schools have an abysmal record of making any difference to first-generation learners and children from linguistic minorities and socio-economic strugglers.
What is the parent education at TLS?
Parent education at TLS is focused on five dimensions:
- Education on education (formal education of children is NOT commonsense). Parents and society-at-large need to be formally educated on education.
- Education on math, art, languages (limited to the English language as of now), social science, science, physical education; The contents of all our parental education is around our 'A2Z' book in every subject.
- Assessment and evaluation of children in various subjects (to help parents evaluate their effectiveness and gaps, and to modify their learning style)
- Career discovery resources, community, linkages, and evaluations
- The community of parents, domain experts, etc. on a wide range of emergent educational dimensions, such as life skills, socio-emotional learning, bullying, etc.
Most importantly, a family can only enrol for the education of parents only up to a maximum of 24 months during the K - 10 years of their children. Focused as we are on enabling parents to be learners, our goal is to handhold parents to a point where they become independent learners using our curricular resources.
How does TLS educate parents?
TLS promotes 'independently educated parents' while offering curated courses for parents. TLS offers an inimitable 'Family edition' of curricular textbooks for K-10. For parents who are professionally engaged in far demanding routines, we accept parent-appointed tutors to be enrolled with us.
Why is TLS education impactful?
TLS is initiated by Saloni Srivastava and Sandeep Srivastava, a unique, highly educated, multidimensional, inventive couple dedicated to improving the quality of 'school years education' across the globe. Their work spans a whole gamut of educational dimensions that includes school leadership development (administrators and principals), parent education, 'whole-school' transformation, leading technology solutions for schools, new school models, and new-genre family edition curricular books.
Saloni holds an MSc in food science and nutrition. She home schooled and taught her only child for six years till XII. She has authored/co-authored numerous textbooks on pre-primary math; environmental sciences for K-V; art, music, and dance for K-VIII; biology for VI-X.
An alumnus of Jadavpur University, IIT Delhi, and INSEAD, Sandeep features as the first or among the pioneering few to pen a book on the internet - 'Embracing the Net' (Financial Times, UK), on e-governance - 'Government @Net' (Sage, India), on 'innovation as strategy' - 'The Bright Stuff' (Prentice Hall, USA) around the turn of the millennium.
Turning to the education sector after success in the IT sector, Sandeep has authored over 100 books on maths, science, social sciences, school leadership, teacher training, and parent engagement and presented six papers on the quality of education in the 21st century at the 18th and 19th UNESCO-APEID International Conference in Bangkok.
Having worked with several schools across the globe, He dreams of reforming the education system, empowering parents to guarantee the overall development of every child, and helping create a world where every individual is truly educated!