cristinfrank:

“Your kid is in the bottom three of the class,” was the unpleasant reality presented at my last teacher conference. It was then decided that I would bring my first-grader into school early, twice a week, for math help. After the second tutoring session the teacher e-mailed me to say she had a difficult time with my son. By the third session, we were dumped. “Something’s come up and I can no longer tutor him.” (WTF)

My mother and two sister-in-laws are elementary ed teachers and offered their expertise. I was told, “Cristin, you’re smart and creative, but you really need a professional to handle this.” I thought that was true, up until that moment. I was never shy about admitting I didn’t have a background in educating. But, had I forgotten, in my back pocket was a marketing career.

No, I don’t educate; I trick!

My favorite marketing strategies are incentive, privilege, repetition, curiosity and visualization.

Flash cards suck. But they’re not so bad, if you let your little one stay up a little past his bedtime to learn them (incentive). Now, instead of flash cards allow him to use a special dry erase board, but only for math (privilege). Write 3 math problems on said dry erase board and go over them a few times. Ask him to bring you the board first thing in the morning to see if he can still remember the answer. Do this until he’s on autopilot with those 3 problems (repetition). At the same time, hide the other flash cards in an envelope. Put the envelope in view but not within reach. You want him to wonder what problems are in there.  Ah, ah, but he can’t know until he get’s the current problems memorized (curiosity). While this little “head game” is going on, post a picture of something he’d like to have – his reward for memorizing those fun and challenging flash cards (visualization). My son randomly asked for a typewriter, sigh, so I had to go to a stock photo site to get my visualization tool. And I’m afraid I’m going to have call on American Pickers to find me one!

Do note, it’s important to take this five-point approach, otherwise “something might come up” and your son will dump his enthusiasm.

Good Luck!

Hello, grad school application essay.

Source: cristinfrank