Another Five Tips for Parents from Another School Official
“We look at relationships and patterns and changes, “says Christopher McGee, Curriculum Coordinator in Webster Groves, MO.
He tied for 1st place in St. Louis Magazine‘s Excellence in Education Award in Administration this month. Yesterday we listened to the other Administrative winner and his Five Tips for Parents. Today, let’s hear from Mr. McGee.
He tells “how eighth-graders learn the intricacies of electricity. They are assigned the task of creating an arcade game. They have to wire it to make a light turn on or a sound go off to let the players know they have won or lost the game.”
When completed, the games are packed up and taken to elementary schools.
“There is nothing more validating of a learning experience than to see kids who are excited and want a bunch of kids to play their game,” he says. “It was real. It was better than any work sheet or lab could ever have been.”
Mr. McGee’s Five Tips for Parents are:
1. Love hard.
2. Embrace failure.
3. Say “Yes and….”
4. Embrace technology.
5. Get a network or people who are as like you and as unlike you as possible.
joescheets 
Explain #3 please.
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Good question, and thanks for reading and asking
I read this as saying the same thing as we heard not long ago at Annual Conference from a guest preacher: “Yes, and” keeps the door open to conversation whereas “No,” or my personal favorite irritant, “Yeah but,” both seem not to.
Also, context would be key. For example, Patty just left for the airport a moment ago. If I, Joe, with my zero flight training and no certification and whatever else the airline, the FAA and an insurance company all say I’d need, would have gone along to the airport this morning and asked to pilot a plane full of passengers, the only sensible answer would be “No.” However, were I to ask if it’s possible, even for someone like me, to learn to pilot a plane full of passengers, the answer would be more likely to start with “Yes, and here’s how….”
Back to Mr. McGee’s list here: I think the intent of #3 is for parents to talk with our children of whatever age and to encourage dialogue. It also is important in other relationships as well.
Finally, it sure seems to me this a learned skill…and I’m still learning.
Helpful? Way off base? Too verbose? Do I need more coffee? (and the answer to that last question of COURSE starts with “Yes, and….”)
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I have the same question. I wonder if #3 means for parents to reinforce what a child has said or has accomplished by affirming and then expanding. In other words, taking the topic a little further so they learn more?
Something to mull over with my cup of coffee this morning.
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You said what I was trying to say, Patty Mason. Thank you! Like I’ve Replied to Janet and everybody else I hope: Great having you here and Commenting; love the interaction.
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I can attest that #3 would have been most helpful 30 years ago when dealing with a 9-year-old learning disabled/behavior disordered non-reader. There wasn’t much parental support back then, in fact, you tried not to tell people there was anything different. Until she acted out for another parent, our children played together “normally”.
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Nanette — you’re right…some things have changed for the better.
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