Richmond County Ninth Grade Academy Social Studies Teacher Curt Locklear was painting a school mural on the wall of his classroom on the day before students return to school. “I want them to feel like they have really arrived now that they’re in the ninth grade,” Locklear said.
This is especially true in the case of Mark Thayer and his father Ken. Mark is starting the Richmond County Ninth Grade Academy today. Yesterday he and his father visited the school to acclimate him.
“We were unable to make it to the open house, so we came today just to make sure he wasn’t completely lost tomorrow,” Ken Thayer said. “Now that he knows where he’ll be going, he should be ready to get right down to work.”
Getting right down to work is something Mark is aware he’ll have to do, but isn’t necessarily looking forward to.
“I guess it’s all right, but I wish summer was longer,” Mark Thayer said. “I guess it’s going to be a little bit harder (in ninth grade).”
Other parent and student teams will face many of the same experiences as Mark and Ken during the upcoming school year, explained Richmond County Ninth Grade Academy Guidance Counselor Linda Tillman.
She had some suggestions to help them navigate the changing tides.
“I think it helps parents to focus on the student’s maturity level,” she said. “Each year the expectations become higher, and each year their class work does get a little more difficult, particularly with this age group. Parents can really help them with their motivation to do better by being involved in their schoolwork.”
She said she suggests parents and students approach the first day of school like the first day of a job, and avoid the pitfalls of saying ‘It’s only the beginning of the semester and I can work double-hard later.’
“The first day to the last day of school is important,” Tillman said. “So you really need to establish those good habits at the beginning of school. It’s like a job, and I encourage students to approach it like a job. Certain things are expected of you and you have to live up to them.”
The good habits start first thing in the morning, she explained, and stretch onto the end of the day when students return home.
“A morning routine is really important, and I like to remind them that breakfast is very important, even for ninth graders,” she said. “Once they get up into high school age, I think they’re the ones that don’t get it as much, it’s kind of like ‘Let me sleep as late as I can,’ whereas with the little ones their parents get them up.
The routine at the end of the day shouldn’t wait until the literal end of the day, however, she said.
“If they can, as soon as they get home, let them have a little relaxation period where they get a snack or do something for themselves, then go ahead and get homework out of the way so the rest of their time will be theirs,” Tillman said.
She said this helps students to set their mind at ease as well, instead of having the anxiety that there’s undone assignments due the next day, “then sometimes they’ll end up rushing through it because bedtime comes, and they just want to get through it.”
Tillman also said that while most students who are interested in participating in sports are already signed up by the time school starts, the beginning of the year is a great time to look at what clubs secondary students might want to join or extra-curricular activities they want to participate in.
“I do encourage parents to have every student involved in some type of extra-curricular activity, even if it’s not school-related,” she said. “If you keep them active and busy doing positive things, it usually will help them to mature, but even when they reach a certain level of maturity in high school, a lot of them still need encouragement to do well, and to think independently instead of just following the crowd.”
For primary school students, many of the same rules apply, but typically things have to be simplified, West Rockingham Elementary Guidance Counselor Meghann Barberousse said.
“The main thing is getting them back on a schedule,” she said. “Getting them into a routine, especially at the beginning of the year makes a big difference.”
Barberousse said that as the year begins, sometimes students, particularly in kindergarten through third grade, have a hard time re-adjusting to school.
“Mondays can be a little rough, then Tuesday’s as well, but usually by Wednesday it settles down a little,” she said. “It really helps once they get into their routine and schedule. With little ones, their routine is all they know.”
She said one thing parents can do is have their schedules at home correspond to their schedules at school.
“Every day, teachers have a routine where they ask them to come in, take out their bookbags, and get out their homework folders,” Barberousse said. “It really helps if their schedule at home parallels their schedule at school, and they come home and take out their bookbags and their homework at the same time everyday, and there is a place in the homework folder for parents to sign.”
She also had some suggestions for parents when they help their younger students with homework.
“A lot of the veteran teachers here will tell you that working with young kids takes patience,” she said. “Sometimes, you don’t realize how you speak, for instance, and a kindergartner doesn’t understand certain words. You really have to get on their level, and you know what your child understands and what they don’t, so you have to acclimate yourself to that.”
Finally, Barberousse said establishing a line of communication between parents and teachers can be a key to success early on in school.
“Every school, from elementary to high school, has an open house to try to open that line of communication,” she said. “It’s very important that teachers be able to talk to parents. You can send something home with a child, and hope that the parent sees it, but nothing makes up for having that line of communication open.”
Tillman pointed out that another thing that offers secondary students encouragement and incentive to do well is to have them consider what colleges they might want to attend or identify a career they’d like to have.
“Some of things we try to orient students and parents into is that you start out setting your goals for the things that you want to accomplish, and that can serve as motivation for students to put in the time it takes to accomplish them,” she said. “We do stress study habits: Make sure you get your homework done and make sure you’re here everyday to get your work done because missing days really does add up.”
At the academy, two unexcused absences in one semester means a student automatically fails the class, she explained.
“You have got to be here, it’s your job,” she said she tells students every year. “It is what is expected of you, just like my job is to be your counselor and be here everyday unless something catastrophic happens.”
RCNGA Social Studies Teacher Curt Locklear will be Mark Thayer’s homeroom teacher this year, and he was also preparing for class on Monday. He said teachers face many of the same challenges students do at the beginning of each year.
“There’s an air of excitement at the beginning of school because you don’t really know what to expect and what type of students you’ll have in your class in the new year,” he said. “I mean, you’ve got their background and paperwork, but a lot can change over a summer. You’ve got a chance to really mold these students and help them to adapt to the transition, and that means a lot to a teacher.”
He said teachers, too, have to adapt year in and year out, to new technologies, new students and new techniques.
“So, yes, we’re teachers, but it’s also like we’re students, as well,” he said.
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