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Our tutors help students master the subject matter using the school’s curriculum. They also help students develop the study and test taking skills needed to thrive in any academic setting. I start with a free home consultation to pinpoint where your child is struggling and how we can help.

It shouldn’t surprise us that children forget over the summer some of the knowledge that they’ve learned the previous school year. What’s disturbing is how much they forget and how it can set them back academically. These are some of the key findings of a study by the National Summer Learning Association:

• On average, students lose approximately 2.6 months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills during the summer months.

• Research spanning 100 years shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer.

• Nearly all students experience learning losses over the summer if they do not engage in learning opportunities.

With upwards of 36,000 teachers being laid off across the state this summer and other drastic cuts to public schools and universities, it is imperative for us to give children every opportunity to keep their young minds engaged in some sort of learning over the summer.

Finally, mainstream media is starting to realize what many teachers have known for years: kids who exercise before class are more awake and ready to tackle academics when they sit down for classroom instruction. Exercise stimulates the brain, wakes up sleepy students, and thereby prepares them for learning. I always knew to put my most important and engaging topics immediately after PE because I knew that more of the students would really understand what I was teaching them, and they were more likely to remember it later. Earlier this week ABC News ran a segment about how an increasing number of school are not only scheduling PE earlier in the school day to help prepare students for learning, but are putting stationary bikes, exercise balls, and other exercise equipment in classrooms to keep young bodies and minds active while they learn. (Go to http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=7283772&page=1)

It’s an excellent idea and I applaud educators and administrators who support this kind of emphasis on exercise in schools and the role it can play in supporting academics. As a middle school teacher, I would work in physical exercise wherever I could in the social studies curriculum. For example, to illustrate the differences between the Continental Army and the Redcoats during the Revolutionary War, I had two thirds of my class play the Redcoats in a game of capture the flag. This represented the Redcoats’ numerical superiority against the Continental Army soldiers, while the latter had the “home field advantage” of defending a much smaller area around their flag.  This brought the important differences of the two armies to life in a fun and energetic way, it tapped into the different learning styles of the students, and they were much more likely to remember the major points of the lesson than if they had just read it from a history textbook.

I encourage parents to be advocates for their children when it comes to PE and classroom opportunities for physical activity. PE should be one of the last classes cut in this time of budgetary constraints. Parents can also do what they can to help their children get their exercise they need by encouraging them to play after-school sports, purchase a family membership to a local gym or YMCA, or even take a short, brisk walk with your children before school. The important is not how or where they exercise, but that they exercise regularly (preferably daily and before class) for at least 20 minutes at a time. The benefits are huge and can absolutely result in a better report card!

I could feel trouble the moment I  walked into that seventh grade classroom last Friday.  The substitute teacher was desperately trying to gain control of the classroom with a loud, demanding voice, while several students blatantly ignored him and continued their conversations with classmates, some of whom were across the room. The teacher quickly walked up to me and before he could open his mouth I knew what he was going to ask me to do. “Walk around the room and make sure they’re reading along with me and staying on task.” He had already put three boys in desks facing the walls away from the class, but that didn’t stop them from turning around and making loud comments to no one in particular. Other students were having conversations with their neighbors, and others were doodling on notebook paper and had no book.

I did my best to keep the kids on track, but many of them had other ideas: “How tall are you?” a girl asked me. Another complained: “I already read this. I’m not gonna read it again.” A boy with his desk against the wall shouted: “Hey Mr. Nooger (clearly making fun of the teacher’s name), what page are we on?” The students burst out laughing. Even with my help the class continued to spiral out of control as the voices of the students and the teacher rose.

Fortunately for me, I had my special education class to go to by that time. This was a sixth grade special day class, or SDC, and I had been in these before. It wasn’t much different from the others in that these students had obvious special needs that prevent them from succeeding in the regular classroom. One girl appeared illiterate as she struggled to read a very simple sentence. The boy behind her started to make fun of another student’s mother. When he ignored my request to focus on the worksheet in front of him, he loudly complained, “Are we in Iran? Is this a dictatorship?” I decided to give him the attention he was obviously seeking by walking him through the first two questions on his biology worksheet. He could write down only one or two word answers even with my help, and his hand writing looked like a first grader’s. Immediately after I turned away, he turned his attention turned to the other students and getting a reaction out of them. After more rude comments and a swear word, I told him I was starting to write up the referral, and it was his choice if he wanted to remain in the classroom or go the counseling office with the referral. He didn’t miss a beat: “I’m not going to the counseling office — I’ll just keep walking home.”

The class did settle down after he left, but I felt despondent as the teaching assistant helped the kids with the rest of the worksheet. They basically copied down what she was writing on the overhead. There was some discussion about the material, but I could tell that there was little real learning taking place in this classroom.

The students and teaching assistant were going through a routine that is an unspoken agreement between the teacher and students. This routine has become all too common in our nation’s classrooms: the teacher teaches in a straight-forward but unengaging way that keeps the students pre-occupied and minimizes the teacher’s preparation time and energy. The students “agree” to do as the teacher says and thereby do a modicum of work and can pass the class.

This is not meant to fault the majority of hard-working, ethical teachers out there. It is meant to point out that the system facilitates this kind of process of “getting through the day.” Teachers are hugely overburdened with overcrowded classes, endless state standards to teach, students with behavior issues, mountains of papers to grade, the list goes on.  When I was a classroom teacher there were several times when I resorted to worksheets, films, and silent reading just to get through the day so that I could go home and rest.

Band-aid approaches to fixing our educational system will not do. Until we can change the  underlying structure of public education, we will continue to graduate students (or not graduate them) who are ill-prepared to succeed in college, much less find fulfilling and lucrative work in the world economy. And like the substitute teacher I tried to help last Friday, teachers will continue to do whatever they can to get children to behave, do some work, and leave them enough peace to return the following day to do it all over again.