The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1905-01-07
SOME SCHOOL
SUGGESTIONS
IMPORTANCE OF PUNCTUALITY
AND REGULARITY
Attention of Parents Called to
Monthly Report Cards Impor.
tance of Manifesting a Constant
Interest in Children,s Work.

In response to the editors request,
Prof. Joubert, principal of the Fri
day Harbor school, has favored the
ISLANDER with some suggestions the
observance of which should enable
parents to render valuable assistance
to teachers and school officers in
their constant efforts to promote the
efficiency of the public schools. Such
discussions should be welcomed by
all and especially so by the mothers
and fathers for whose children the
public school, the nations safeguard,
is established and maintained: Mr..
Joubert says:
''The writer has no new or start
ling thoughts to present. Indeed,
they are very trite, yet he is conf
dent, Judging from an extended
experience in the schoolroom,
that, if they were generally acted
upon, marked increase in the ef-
ficiency of our schools would result.
Reader, if you are mother or fa-
ther of school children and have OBJ
served all these suggestions, be as
sured that your name is writ large in
the estimation of the school teacher,
and if you have been a little negli-
gent, place their careful observance
among the resolutions for the new
year, resting assured that nothing
you can do for your children will
bring so large recompense for so
little effort.
I'm the first place, avoid tardy-
marks. You owe it to your children
to teach them habits of punctuality
and you owe it to the state, which
educates your children almost free of
expense to you, not to injure its in
stitution-the school-by having them
enter late. Do not keep your child
out unless it is absolutely necessary.
For every day he is absent the dis
trict loses eight cents ofstate money.
An absence of three days forfeits
enough of the state appropriation to
buy good library book. Space will
not permit statement of the many
ways in which every absence Injuries
the school work; but if your child
must be absent, send by him on his
return a written excuse giving the
exact cause of his absence. Do not
saw necessary work The law makes
the teacher, not the parent, Judge of
whether the work was such as to
Justify absence from school. Do not
injure the school by making the
teacher waste time asking for the
excuse or sending the child home for
it. The law is explicit: the teacher
shall require NOT may require. If
o child fails of promotion, and con
sequently has to spend two years do
inc one years work, besides becom-
ing a misfit in the school, to what ex-
tent are you, his father or mother,
responsible?
''Do you examine carefully each
month the report card sent you and
INQUIRE into the cause of any low
grade you find on it? Do you see to
it that he does the proper amount OF
home work? The report card should
accomplish more than it does. 1t is
the teachers means of keeping the
parent thoroughly informed monthly
of the progress of his child, to the
end that parent and teacher can the
better cooperate in his education.
Is the teachers work upon some OF
them labor thrown away? Are some
of them unexamined and signed in a
perfunctory way? A principal in
Minneapolis complained that nine
tenths of their reports were signed
by the mothers; the fathers were too
much absorbed in business to think
about the education OF their chill
dren.
ssLastly, and most important OF
all the school cannot do first-class
work unless it gets children from
homes having an educational atmos-
nhere. The school work of the chill
dren should be frequent theme OF
discussion. Questions in history,
geography, etc, should be discussed
IN the home circle. Aid should be
Given ON different points. Parents
Should ask to see specimens OF pen
manship, drawing, letters, compost
tions, examination papers. Inc
school should be visited. In short,
the child should be made to realize
what ought to be most vital TACT,
viz. that his proper education IS the
,,-,-,orrnoat Thought in the minds OF