Category Archives: blogs

Are you technically fit to parent?

Are you technically fit to parent?

The most rewarding point to be a parent is to mentoring, guiding your child. However, how do you parent, not govern in a digital way? Kids might be cyber-bullied. There is a huge digital gap existed between parents and kids. If we don’t bridge the gap, our kids will be alienated from us, and the technology gap will expand over time. Nowadays, kids are digital natives. They don’t think technology is a tool because they naturally grow in this environment. On the other hand, we are digital tourists who migrate. Therefore, how to govern, enable, and parent becomes critical issues. We have to adapt, change, and make struggles, but they will be worth it.

 

Michael Fey offers practical advice for parents to close the digital divide between them and their children to help ensure the whole family has a healthy interaction discovering and enjoying the latest technologies.

  1. Believe there is a digital gap due to culture and behavior.
  2. Make technical decisions: look at the trends, understand, and try to join
  3. Use technology to relate to your child. Be a sharper in the digita community, not a gap-keeper to reduce the chance of harm. Make connection to your child!

Harvard Study Reveals Pandemic’s Effect On Young Children

Kids showed increased anxiety, temper tantrums, aggression and sadness, according to the survey. But about 1 in 5 saw positive changes: like more independence and excitement.

According to Harvard professor Stephanie Jones, “If we don’t pay attention to children’s emotion regulation, to their behavior, to their social skills, we might struggle more in the academic domain,”

Reference: https://www.wshu.org/post/harvard-study-reveals-pandemics-effect-young-children#stream/0

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and languages: What are the connections?

The world of education is very interested in ideas around diversity, equity, inclusion, and decolonizing the curriculum right now and International education is no exception.

If diversity means including other viewpoints and perspectives, and representation from groups other than the majority, then this surely includes linguistic diversity as well. If we are striving for educational equity, then we need to be considering equitable access to learning and assessment for our language learner students as a priority. If inclusion is a goal we are working towards, then surely we should be considering inclusive language practices. And surely there is no better route to decolonising the curricula of international schools than to set local and student languages in parity alongside the colonial language that is English.

Article 30 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children have ‘the right to enjoy their own culture, practice their own religion and use their own language’, yet many children are denied the right to use their own language, or are even punished for using their own language in their schools. This is often framed from a position of privilege; children in international schools are by and large from educated and well-off families and are considered ‘lucky’ to have the opportunity to go to school in English. When we frame something through this lens, we neglect to consider what children may be sacrificing for this opportunity, which for some (potentially many) is fluency and literacy in their own language.

True inclusion happens when children are given the support they need to understand and access learning. The most straightforward route to ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion for languages in our schools is to develop a multilingual approach to learning, where languages are used as resources to enhance learning opportunities for all students.

Reference: https://www.cois.org/about-cis/perspectives-blog/blog-post/~board/perspectives-blog/post/diversity-equity-inclusion-and-languages-what-are-the-connections