how to make parents allies of the teacher?

Prerequisites for creating free groups in a paid circle

Mom and dad raised me quite in the Soviet way (for which I am very grateful to them). In particular, they explained to me that the main criterion for the usefulness of a person’s activity is the benefit to others from this very activity. Moreover, the benefit to others is measured not by money at all, but by the benefit that people receive from the work of an individual. Based on this, both the business itself with a robotics circle and the experiment to create free groups were built.

I opened the robotics club entirely with my own money. The main source of funds for the development and existence of the enterprise is the provision of paid services – conducting classes in engineering disciplines for children.

List of studied disciplines:

Circuitry and soldering;
Fundamentals of informatics and computer literacy;
Work in vector graphics editors;
Fundamentals of drawing and 3D modeling;
Working with CNC machines;
Arduino programming;
Development of Android applications;
Web-development and network technologies;
Creation of engineering projects;
Preparation for Olympiads in Physics;
Sketching;
Fundamentals of mathematical modeling.

We work like this: parents of children pay for attendance at classes conducted directly by mentors. For children who have successfully mastered the skills and are sufficiently disciplined, there is an opportunity to spend as much time as they like in the circle for free, using all available equipment and working on their projects.

So…

During the first couple of years of the circle’s work, a cohort of very gifted children and adolescents stood out among the students, with whom it was extremely pleasant to work. The guys regularly stayed after the lessons, were creative, created devices and programs – in general, they pleased me and my colleagues with their developments and unbridled energy. At some point, I came up with the idea to hire a teacher more competent than myself, and give them the opportunity to study with him for free (that is, at my expense). The motive is simple: I really wanted the guys to know as much as possible. And for free – because I wanted to thank their parents for raising such wonderful guys.

Free groups: banal implementation and collapse of the idea

Actually, that’s what I did: I found a mentor – a young guy, not much older than me, who worked as an engineer in a design bureau at one of the local enterprises. We quickly threw together a course with him, which we called “WEB development for the Internet of things.” The idea was to show how to design network devices, while laying the foundation for understanding network technologies and powdering it a little with examples in various “network” programming languages. Since the youth in the group were very talented, from the foundations received, in my opinion, the guys would later be able to independently develop the skills they needed.

So, a group of 8 people was recruited, the time of classes was approved. As well as the remuneration of the teacher – 600 r / hour, which is quite a lot for our city, but for a specialist of the level that the mentor has demonstrated, this is definitely not the ultimate dream.

Classes have begun. The mentor did not make them boring, the information was well structured, useful, and I didn’t expect the appearance of hardware projects today, tomorrow, which are friends with the network not only in MQTT.

However, after a month and a half of classes, I noticed that part of the group (about half of the guys) began to regularly skip classes.

I asked the guys:
“You’re not interested, are you?”
“Interesting – they answer, – there is simply no time.”
“What do you have time for?” – I ask.
Silent…

When three out of eight came to the next lesson, I decided to call my parents to find out what was the matter. One maman told me that her child was digging a garden bed. The second mother harnessed a sixteen-year-old guy to bake pies. Third… And so on.

To say that I was dumbfounded is to say nothing. Before the start of classes, I talked with my parents, explained that this group was created because the guys have a very powerful engineering potential, that the knowledge that they will be given is not the fact that they will receive at the university. Also, all parents were aware that I pay for the work of a mentor out of my own pocket. They nodded their heads and said thank you…

… and in the end they decided that the beds and pies are more important than “this internet of yours”…

After this episode, I abolished the free group and thought hard. It was 2020.

Free groups: model adjustment and idea success

After thinking about it for a year, I realized what the problem is with free education in general. Oddly enough, the culprits of absenteeism were not children (in my case, the children just wanted to study), but parents who did not care what their offspring were doing there for FREE. Free means voluntary. Voluntarily – it means that they do me the honor that they come. They may walk, or they may not.

And in general – why not skip it, if possible? ..

This problem, to one degree or another, is present in all formats of free education in our country. Schools, institutes, circles, online courses… Everywhere, absenteeism is an inevitable evil that teachers, teachers and mentors have to put up with. For five years of work in education, I heard an unimaginable number of complaints about this.

As a result, the following idea was born: to recruit free groups, but with the conclusion of a contract for the provision of services. And the essence of the contract is formulated simply:

1. You can attend classes for free. Skipping – only for money (500 rubles / lesson).
2. In case of non-payment for absenteeism, the child leaves the group, and his place goes to another.
3. In case of more than two non-attendances without notification of the reasons – similarly.
4. If the child does not systematically learn the material and fails the control – similarly.
5. A good reason for missing classes is an illness, confirmed by a doctor’s certificate issued on the date of the absence.

The idea was to provide sobering effect specifically for the parents of the children. Make sure parents are INTERESTED closely monitoring the child’s attendance. So that for once they begin to respect the work of the teacher and the time spent by him to teach their children useful things.

The contract was ready, and already in September 2021, two groups were recruited, who began to study using this free model.

The effect was simply stunning)

Over the past two years since the start of the experiment, free groups have shown incredible effectiveness.

Firstly, It’s about attendance. For comparison: the percentage of absenteeism in paid groups is on average about 7%, in free ones – less than 1%. In two years in free groups of 14 people and almost 150 classes, I had only 6 absenteeism. The sample, of course, is not super-representative, if only because there are 10 times fewer children in free groups than in paid ones, and the age of the students is not taken into account here. And yet – parents do not allow children to skip, this is obvious. And this, in turn, greatly simplifies the conduct of classes and increases their effectiveness)
Secondly, I drew attention to another important indicator – academic performance. And here, too, the advantage is in the direction of free groups – children learn the material much better, they don’t hack. Again, thanks to parents who are afraid of “losing their place” in the free group, and therefore they control their children so that they learn notes and do homework.

The basis, as they say, is the economy …

Unforeseen Features of the Efficient Free Group Model

1. Refusals upon acquaintance with the terms of contracts

During the recruitment of groups, there were often cases when I was indignantly “showed” for the “injustice” of such an agreement.

“What is it, we have to pay for failed classes or what?”
“No,” I answer, “you must make sure that the lesson for YOUR child will certainly take place! And then you don’t have to pay.”

Not all of these “humiliating” conditions came up.

In general, the agreement has become a kind of filter for the contingent. As in budgetary institutions, here you can’t twist the teacher’s arms, stomping your feet and shouting that TEACHER MUST (both to teach and educate, and at the same time not to touch the parents and not to raise their voices to the children). For all the time there were no incidents with “freebies” at all.

2. The desire of freebies for “marginal savings”

Another interesting side effect I began to observe relatively recently, when I opened a shop for spare parts and consumables at the mug. The essence of the effect is that children and parents want to “bend the system” at all costs, and do their best to save money, even to the detriment of themselves, no matter how paradoxical it may sound at first glance. Let me explain with an example:

A child comes to me and declares with a satisfied smile: “But I didn’t buy plywood from you, I found it cheaper!” I say, cool, but where is the three-ruble note for sale, and even polished, and even so as not to buy it in wagons? “To wildberry!” Oh, I think it’s okay. “Why did the sheet come out to you?” “Hah, you said that you have a little more than A3 costs 300 rubles, and I bought 3 pieces of A5 for only 600!”
It starts to break through me haha: “Do you know what size A3 and A5 formats are?” “So obviously!” – the child answers me – “A5 is larger than A3, mom and dad said so! ..”

Okay, canceled the order…

And this is just one of the examples.

The idea of parents, as I understand it, is formulated as follows:

If it’s free, then we won’t give a cent to the bourgeois face! Even if to the detriment of oneself, sometimes with wild labor costs – not a ruble to the class enemy)))

It’s a joke, of course, but something like that always comes through in communication with all freebies. And, it would seem, it can be attributed to the fact that these groups are attended by children from families with low incomes. But no matter how: the wealth there is very different, including a very solid one, exceeding the turnover of the circle. But the desire for “marginal savings” is observed in all freebies without exception)

3. “References can be bought!”

Somehow, dad comes to me alone, and cunningly declares like this: you, they say, understand that children are skipping anyway. References are now not very expensive – go, buy it, and go for a walk.

While I was thinking about what to answer to this, the thought haunted me – and why are you happy? That children can not get knowledge FOR MONEY instead of studying for FREE?

In the end, he answered simply and honestly:

“The purpose of the agreement is to create maximum discomfort for those parents who indulge the desire of children who have signed up for classes to mess around.
Help can be purchased. And I will be glad that one of the parents foolishly does so. He sponsors with his money and time the negative educational result of his own child. I think that if a parent respects himself at least a little, then this is unlikely to happen more than once. It’s easier to let the child understand that he is either studying, or let him give up this business, if it’s not at all interesting. Since the option to “sign up and not go”, taking someone’s place in the group, hits the pocket hard.”

This dad left in deep thought. His child, by the way, is one of the best students …

4. Collective effect

This year, I got a group, without exception, consisting of school hooligans. And then one day the threat of expulsion for academic failure hung over one of them. I directly told him about it. The guy hung his nose.

After the lesson, two of his friends come up to me and say – can we come after school and work with our friend so that he catches up?

I was just +100 in spirit at that moment) Well, wow, I think this is awareness) It was very nice that before my eyes the guys were building what is called the word “team”. By deed proving that they have here “brother for brother, this is taken as a basis!”))

The guys kept their word, and they pulled up their friend for a year) As a result, he was able to finish his studies, and even mastered circuitry and soldering quite well.

conclusions

Yes, in general, simple: the model of free classes described above (study for free – play truant for a fee) showed its highest efficiency. And it is in the upbringing of parents (may my parents forgive me – but this process cannot be called differently).

Thanks to such an agreement, the parent, along with the teacher, is harnessed to the battle for the educational result. It not only sends children to classes, but also controls attendance and academic performance. Along the way, apparently explaining to the child that free classes are a valuable gift, and it is necessary TO THE MAXIMUM (see. Effect “marginal economy”) to use them.

I will be glad to discuss this issue in the comments to the article) And in conclusion …

… a little anecdote