Luckily we have education research...

Luckily we have education research. Recently researchers showed there is a strong link between academic achievement and eating a breakfast comprising several different food groups. Apparently it didn’t matter which food groups – as long as there were several of them, but more food groups means better academic achievement.

What a relief – to find it’s not good teaching practice, or attendance rates, or technological stuff like smart boards or the internet, or textbooks, or even genetics. Academic achievement is not the result of these things – it’s the result of breakfasts made from a range of food groups.
Every classroom teacher is involved in education research. I think we might even call it Action Research. Here’s my conclusion (not worth anything at all though, me being just an amateur Action Researcher)… good kids have good parents – and vice versas. Good parents have good kids. Bad parents have bad kids. Bad kids have bad parents.

James couldn’t read and his mother didn’t bother returning the teachers’ phone calls, make school visits or buy James new clothes. Grant’s parents were cheerful and positive and supportive of the school’s efforts and Grant was well-mannered, studious and went on to university.

Allison’s a first class brat – rude, defiant, arrogant, snotty, doesn’t do her homework and shouts out things like ‘just wait until my parents hear about this’ and her mother shouts the F-word in our school. Paul’s mother is a sloppy drunk and Paul lies to his teachers and doesn’t tuck his dirty, un-ironed shirt in.

Maria’s mother asked at parent interviews if she does her homework and behaves respectfully in class, and Maria has perfect handwriting, never misses school, is cheerful and enthusiastic and helpful.

If I say ‘monkey see monkey do’ I suppose the anti-evolutionists will get snarly but too bad.
Good parents prepare good breakfasts. Parents who make the effort to prepare interesting breakfasts also buy books, talk with their kids about school, friends, drugs, sex, university, the internet, bullying… and all that. Good parents are interested in schooling, and so are their kids.
This explains why it doesn’t matter if the breakfast is made of cereal, whole-grain toast with home-made marmalade, bacon & eggs & mushrooms & black pudding or even those silly sugar-coated multi-coloured animal shapes made from GM corn starch.

It’s not what the breakfast is made of, it’s that the parent cares enough to make it.
We might even refine the hypothesis a little – good parents care about their kids.
(Here’s another hypothesis – that less researchers and more teachers is good for education.)
Have a good breakfast everyone.