The Experience

     In an earlier Marketing Matter, "Experience" was listed as one of the four elements (marks, if you will) of the Catholic school - Faith, Academics, Community and Experience (creating the FACE acronym).

     What kind of experience are your children having in the classroom?  Are they engaged learners, interacting with one another to accomplish small group projects, or does the teacher make them sit in neat rows, keeping their eyes on their own papers, lecturing incessantly day after day?  Here's the litmus test - are the children generally enthused about coming to and being a part of the school, or do they sit at their desks, elbow on the desktop, chin and cheek resting on their hand, staring up at the ceiling, or looking for something to "DO" rather than being forced to sit and listen for 40 minutes at a clip?  Not only the children, but the parents - what is their "experience" of your school?  Do they feel they are part of the educational process, that they are partners with the teacher and the school...or are they viewed as "helicopter" parents, always hovering over their children, and, in the teacher's mind, hindering their children's education.  If a teacher says, "I wish these parents would just leave me alone," that's an indication to watch the retention numbers of the children that matriculate to the next grade from that class.

     Click here to read the Advancement Article on "The Experience."

© Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement, 2007 (Original publication date: 20071210)

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