Stay positive no matter what! How to recognize a great teacher for your child

Children spend most of their lives in school. They socialize, learn and play all day, five days a week. Parents with busy careers drop their child sometimes as early as seven in the morning.

What is it that we expect from the teachers then?

Is it the newest technology and top of the art playground?

Or is it that our child is loved, heard and cared for?

Teacher behaviors such as listening to children, making eye contact with them, and engaging in many one-to-one, face-to-face interactions with young children promote secure teacher-child relationships. Talking to children using pleasant, calm voices and simple language, and greeting children warmly when they arrive in the classroom is important.

It takes a second to lose patience and yell at a child - it might take a lifetime for a child to forget or process.

Raising your voice is not the way!

It is not a good environment for a child to be in day by day, hour by hour. Therefore, it is important for a parent to talk to your child, communicate with the teacher, schedule a conference, "shadow" a class, get involved as much as possible and advocate for you child.

Once a parent discovers that a teacher is rasing his/her voice, communication is crucial.

Another key factor for recognizing a good teacher is the physical contact.

We should not refrain, as many people do nowadays, from patting a child on the back, hugging, holding hands, or sitting a child in the lap. A good teacher will get down to the child's eye level to talk, or will sit on the floor and have a conversation.

Unfortunately, many schools discourage teachers from physical contact or getting down on knees and have a hands on experience. Moreover, in higher grades some schools with an advanced technology will even abandon eye contact, facial expression or raising a hand if a student has a question or an answer.

In a recent google workshop, the facilitator was so eager to sell the technology that he propsed fully immersed online class, where students and teachers communicate through an app during class. There was no need for any eye contact raising hands or discussion, it was all online.

Pretty simple, the instructor added.

How harmful and sad, I thought...

Parents are powerful - they can ask questions about their child all the time. They can set up a meeting, go and visit the class, ask their child open ended questions and simply sense if their child is happy and has a positive relationship with his/her teacher.

The power is YOURS!!!