High School-Age Learning
What high school lessons are meant to teach verbal-linguistic skills?
In high school, the lessons are designed to be quite rigorous in terms of asking children to begin to express themselves in writing, through very complex research papers. They also express themselves verbally, justifying their answers and elaborating with proper vocabulary. There are a lot of demands linguistically for a high school student, and much of the day is spent in honing those verbal-linguistic skills.
How can I tell if my high school-age child is having trouble with verbal-linguistic skills?
Well once again I think that we would get reports from the school from English teachers possibly from our social studies teachers but really we could get even information from the math's teachers saying that child's having trouble of explaining their reasoning or working out the proofs for the geometry problems. At home we might notice that our children are not developing the kind of vocabulary and expressive language that we think would be normally acceptable in a high school age child.
What high school lessons are meant to teach verbal-linguistic skills?
We can help our high school-aged children with verbal and linguistic skills by modeling very good language with them, by engaging them in conversation, asking them to explain their ideas and asking them to explain the ideas of others. When we watch television with high school children - even if it's something in the background - we might explain to them the meaning of something they may be struggling with, or we may ask them to explain to us the meaning of something that they're seeing. If we're not native language speakers and we want to engage our children in good conversation to improve their verbal and linguistic skills, we certainly can ask them to translate for us. We can ask them to explain to us either in our native language or in English. Any way that we can engage children in good oral language is going to build up linguistic and verbal skills.
How is my high school-age child taught logical-mathematical skills?
Logical mathematical skills in high school continue to be taught through math classes, where children take advanced algebra, algebra II, geometry and sometimes calculus. The logical part of logical mathematical skills - the problem-solving part of that - manifests itself where children continue to analyze literature, and particularly history and the social sciences, where a lot of problem solving, planning and logical outcome prediction takes place.
How can I tell if my high school-age child is having trouble with logical-mathematical skills?
High school kids who are struggling with logical and mathematical skills will often find out about that from the school itself. We'll see progress reports that are not up to par and you may be contacted by the school or teacher that your child is struggling. They may even have to repeat classes or take summer school and the like. At home, you will also see that they're having trouble solving common problems, such as problems with their technology, like getting online or rebooting a computer. If they have problems solving the type of issues that come up that most people know how to get around, such as being locked out of the house, or trying to contact someone for help, they may be struggling with logical and mathematicl skills.
How can I help my high school-age child learn logical-mathematical skills?
We can help high school-age learners with logical mathematical skills by, of course, trying to pay attention as best we can to their work - particularly to their math work homework - but also to have them apply solutions in real life. Come up with alternative plans and alternative routes that we might take when we're taking a trip. We might have our children help us book our plane flights or rent a car. Improve logical mathematical skills by encouraging high school children to get online and to solve some of the type of problems that the Internet, for example, and looking for information, helps us to solve. These things may help kids to become better logical thinkers.
What high school lessons are meant to teach musical-rhythmic skills?
Music and rhythm are still taught in high school through music classes. At that point children have really differentiated themselves; many are on the drill team or in the marching band. There were jazz band and pop bands in high school. Of course choir and chorus continue.
How can I help my high school-age child learn musical-rhythmic skills?
Highschool is a time that a lot of children, especially in these days of very popular pop music, are asking for musical instruments. Many would love to play guitar, would love a keyboard or a set of drums. Of course we can accommodate them, and we can help them and try to get them music lessons thus improving their musical-rhythmic skills. We can also encourage them to appreciate a wide range of music, and these days that's pretty easy for kids because they're getting exposed to a lot of different genres, and a lot of different varieties of music. So overall our popular media helps, and with the school's support, and with all kinds of rhythm and music experiences, we can help our kids improve their musical-rhythmic skills.
What high school lessons are meant to teach visual-spatial skills?
Of course visual-spatial skills are taught in art lessons and in art classes in high school. That component is also very strong in the math program where kids are mapping coordinates and setting geometry measurement. In social studies and geography, high school children they're learning concepts of the world and space and time. A lot of activities at the high school level promote and foster visual-spatial skills.
How can I tell if my high school-age child is having trouble with visual-spatial skills?
Following and giving directions - road and map-type directions - is a visual and spatial skill. Children who are struggling with visual and spatial skills in high school and at a high school age may have trouble giving and understanding directions. They may have trouble making a map from directions they're given.
How can I help my high school-age child learn visual-spatial skills?
I think we can help our high school-age children to continue to develop their visual and spatial skills. It's appropriate for a high school student to start to make diagrams and flow charts rather than just simple outlinings of their studies. We can encourage them to draw maps and diagrams for us, and we can model that type of behavior for them, where we're not reluctant to draw or try to represent something when we're trying to express it to them.
What high school lessons are meant to teach bodily-kinesthetic skills?
In high school, we continue to teach PE classes and help the kids learn bodily-kinesthetic skills. High school students start to differentiate themselves into extracurricular sports and intramural sports, playing sports on weekends. We have drill team and high school marching band, for example. Also, there are drama activities to get involved with. These all serve to help foster the bodily-kinesthetic skills in high school children.
How can I tell if my high school-age child is having trouble with bodily-kinesthetic skills?
High school students who are having trouble with bodily-kinesthetic skills generally will not go out for any extracurricular sports. They will possibly manifest a dislike for physical education classes and PE. They may start to show signs of inactivity at home. High school children with poor bodily-kinesthetic skills don't like to get up and go out; they would rather take the car around the block than walk, and we might notice that they never walk anywhere or exert themselves physically in any way. These might be some give-away signs that they're struggling with their physical well-being and their bodily kinesthetic skills.
How can I help my high school-age child learn bodily-kinesthetic skills?
By the time a child's in high school it's going to be very hard for us to get them up off the sofa and make them get up and go. What we can try to do to improve bodily-kinesthetic skills is to create situations in which they might want to do that. If we have a vacation planned, we may be able to do something active - rent a kayak, or take a hike somewhere. I think what parents can do for kids who are of high school age is to model the best behavior. If we're couch potatoes ourselves, if we don't engage ourselves in bike riding or weekend activities, there's going to be no real motivation for a child who's already struggling in the area of bodily-kinesthetic skills to get up and go. Modeling is the best thing we can do as parents for out high school children.
What high school lessons are meant to teach intrapersonal skills?
High schools continue to help children with "intra personal", which is self knowledge through experiences where they expect and ask the learners to express themselves and explain their desires, motives, and beliefs. There's also a movement lately to bring Yoga classes for example, into the physical education instruction, which is designed to help the children not only to build up bodily kinesthetic skills, but to help them build up their ability to be quiet and reflective with themselves, which is part of intra personal knowledge.
How can I tell if my high school-age child is having trouble with intrapersonal skills?
High school-age children who struggle with intrapersonal skills will present this as inability to make choices or be assertive about what they like. These high school children often have an inability to be quiet by themselves and to spend time alone. They may always be reaching out to communicate with and to interact with others.
How can I help my high school-age child learn intrapersonal skills?
The best thing we can do with young adults who are in high school is to model good behavior for them. Our own quiet time, our own time that we are sitting quietly, possibly reading a book, or just meditating; thinking about a problem. Also, we can model our own desires and choices, and show our kids the way that we take care of ourselves, the way that we replenish ourselves, and take rests from our work or stress. I think these things need to be modeled for children, because we really can't make them do that, but if they see us doing that they may follow suite.
What high school lessons are meant to teach interpersonal skills?
All of the experiences in high school are meant to teach intrapersonal skills. From the time the high school-age children get up in the morning, they're interacting with each other. They need to get along, they need to cooperate and they need to look out for each other. In most classes, children are asked to cooperate, to work in collaborative groups and to express their ideas and solve problems together. All these activities aid the development of intrapersonal skills.
How can I tell if my high school-age child is having trouble with interpersonal skills?
High school-age children who are struggling with intrapersonal skills often have not built up close relationships with friends. They may have friends but they may be constantly angry with them, or in acrimonious relationships with them. High school kids struggling with intrapersonal skills may constantly be complaining about people, holding grudges and not really building up relationships. At the same time, children of that age might not have any friends at all, or only one or two friends that aren't very close. This should be a tip-off for parents that their child is not developing good intrapersonal skills and good social relations.
How can I help my high school-age child learn interpersonal skills?
The best thing that a parent can do for their high school-aged child is to model good interpersonal skills with their spouse, with their family, with their friends. Also we can help our child work through any problems that they may be having with their peers. We could suggest alternative ways of solving a problem, and we could also help to clarify some of the problems that high school kids might have like "she didn't want to me to go out with her and Karen on Saturday night so I'm not talking to her today". We might help our child to reach out and find out what the real story was. Help them to make the phone call and ask and maybe get over the problem. We could just provide good guidance based on our own experience.
