The Benefits of our Homework Journal
We have already mentioned in previous blogs how sustaining open communication is a challenge for parents as their child grows towards independence, especially as the generational divide seems further and faster with the relentless progress of technology. We at Get up and Go appreciate this challenge and introduced a School’s Homework Journal to their range of useful diaries for young people in an effort to mitigate against the possible negative impact on emotional health and wellbeing of some of these technological advances.
Children still need access to developing important life, relationship and communication skills – and if they struggle to listen to the ‘older generation’ where will they learn these valuable lessons? Our education system is improving but still perhaps puts undue emphasis on the academic curriculum for a successful career and less attention to emotional issues health that are so important for health, wellbeing and happiness.
Why?
It’s important that our young people develop self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, and a sense of personal responsibility at an early age. A developing young person has a fragile ego that can easily be derailed if core values and competencies are not acknowledged and reinforced in their lived environment. The online environment is a challenge for the best of us! Successful life skills are acquired over the course of a life, and usually come in the form of an ability to deal successfully with challenges that we all inevitably bump up against. We all rely on trusted guides to see us through difficulty. Todays ‘young person’ thinks they know it all already… and are hard to reach by adults. If you don’t think this is true, try and remember what you were like at 15!
Mark Twain famously said:
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
(That is why we let our Get Up and Go diaries and journals speak for themselves…)
In today’s world, traditional jobs are not the ‘be-all and end-all’ to having a successful and rewarding life (a successful career is great but successful relationships are trickier to master). Young people now appreciate that they can make a living as YouTubers, and TikTokers. Strides in technology bring changes in the world economy, which has a knock-on effect not only in the workplace but also on education and home life. Thanks to the increasing demands of what is an incredibly dynamic world, everyone is challenged to keep a firm grasp on their emotions, and it’s more important than ever to learn to deal effectively with stress and frustration. Young people also need to learn to listen, to care, to adapt and to remain flexible. Harmonious relationships are one of the main joys in life.
Learning Skills
While it used to be the 3R’s, we are now in the era of the 4 C’s come in as far as learning skills go. Critical thinking, Creative thinking, Communicating, and Collaborating are skills that not only help students to learn, but also contributes to success beyond school and into life in the world.
We always like to add Curiosity, Courage and Confidence… and they only come from not being afraid to take chances and make mistakes! Oh, the perils of social media… the highs when ‘success’ looks so great and the lows when ‘failure’ can be so public!!!! Did we mention Resilience as a core skill??
Benefits for Students in Developing Life Skills
Educating teenagers for certain employment is short-sighted in the 21st century. Developing life skills will teach children to:
- think and solve problems innovatively
- be confident when speaking, collaborating, and cooperating
- weigh options, make decisions, and understand their choices
- develop self-awareness and appreciation for others.
- be accountable and responsible for their actions
Get a Job
Key employability skills are already being identified and are now at a premium in the job market where academic ability (in a highly competitive but mostly even-playing-field) is becoming less important than how people interact productively with others in the workplace (or on-line)
- engage constructively with problems
- understand colleagues and the business environment
- be a trusted and collaborative team player
- manage self, time and other people (no one wants to be ‘managed’!)
- be adaptable and flexible
- lead by influence and example.
Benefits of a Get Up and Go Homework Journal for the teenager in your life
Communication might well be a fairly universal dilemma but loving the school homework diary is probably not universal among teenagers!! Get up and Go has a solution to that problem. It is friendly, light, engaging and addresses some of the concerns that young people have such as bullying, and anxiety.
The Get up and Go Homework Journal is a hardback marvel offering a fun way to keep the year on track including:
- inspirational quotes and messages encouraging out-the-box thinking, especially for teens
- attention-grabbing graphics
- interesting snippets self-esteem, personal responsibility, goal setting, internet safety, anxiety, depression, and studying.
- academic year planner and week to view over 51 weeks
- pages for communication between students, parents, and teachers.
Schools
We can customise our Journals specifically for a school, displaying the school crest on the covers and incorporating school and class timetables, a personal message from the principal, School Mission Statement, holidays and important dates, exam and study timetable, list of teachers, code of conduct, and internet policy.
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.
Albert Einstein
It is time to think about what the young people need for the future and move away from an education system that tries to teach fish to climb trees. We must focus on educating students to embrace their innate fishiness – their uniqueness. Not every participant in the human race is required to be a theoretical physicist. What the world needs now is for the educated to do work they enjoy and that they are good at. We will all work hard at whatever interests us, and strive to improve. Too many of our young people are suffering under the weight of comparison, expectation or perfection, in unattainable fields. It’s time to release the genie…
