Nobody is inferior and nobody is superior. We are unique. No palm line and no thumb impression are same in this world. Every child is unique. Every child’s learning style is unique. Thousand of factors effect child’s learning habit.
Root cause of students’ weak academic performance may be related to academic or non-academic.
- Premature birth of a child
Generally it has been observed that premature birth of a child may cause slow mental and physical growth.
- Unnatural growth of a child i.e. late walker, late talker
Holistic development of a child depends on various factors. It is observed that if a child has been growing physically as well as mentally as a natural growth cycle, then proper guidance leads a student towards a good learner. So many children may be late walker and late talker. Sometimes it may affect student’s academic performance if a parent fails to provide proper guidance right from early stage. At early stage child does not perform as per as normal child and become leveled as weak students, however in so many cases symptoms of weak learning ability at early stage may be converted into a good learner if s/he gets proper care, attention and guidance at home.
- Intensive and excessive shelter from parent –wish in hand
Due to rapid changing life styles and copied life styles parents try to provide each and every possible facility to their children. Parents protect their children; accept their misbehavior and non academic activities as fun or may be childish nature, but parent is not aware that children are framing and forming all these activities as solid habit/behavior. Child knows his/her power. Child starts managing his/her father and every point of time s/he shows a negative behavior. Formation of negative habit and attitude prohibited a child to develop an interest in academic activities. S/he may be very fast in using Smart phone and other sophisticated electronic gadgets but become a non academic performer.
- Parental problems(dispute between mother & father, divorce case, working parent , face mental trauma due to various problematic reasons at home)
One out of 100 students one student can be self made in a school. His determination to do something great in life unhampered and undisturbed by the parenting styles, otherwise parenting plays a crucial role in forming and framing positive learning attitude. Parental problems obstruct proper mental development of a child. A child remains a child in his childhood but s/he is a minute observer and s/he watches his parents’ day to day activities (a) manner of communication at home (b) behavior for other family members (c) mental, physical, social and economical problems faced by parents (d) parental care at home etc. Child becomes a conflict personality. S/he wants to express but to whom may be a big question for a child. Child could not concentrate on academic activities because his mind does feel at ease and peace anywhere.
- Lack of care at home (due to various reasons)
Learning is a complex phenomenon. Child considers academic learning as a difficult task. Proper parental guidance and caring help child to become active and alert for learning something new but if a parent fails to do proper care at home, child could not cope with present teaching and learning activities. Learning activities becomes too tough to handle. Child starts looking academic activities as boring and learning too much uninterested tasks in his life.
- May be younger than rest of the class
Generally it has been observed in a few cases that parent took admission in higher classes that does not suits the child age but parent thinks that his/her child is very smart, s/he will cope up easily but child fails to cope up with present syllabus and curriculum. Ms Ayushi was admitted in KG1 in a reputed school of a town. School management promised with parent that your child will be sent to class first in next academic session. Parent was so rigid to send his daughter in class 1st. After so many counseling session with parent to send his child into to next class KG 2; parent threatened school to fulfill his promise otherwise he will withdraw her admission. Since it was new school and one of the parents’s known person helped him to admit in class 1st. Ms Ayusi was very shy and introvert girl. She did not speak with teacher in 1st 3 months of academic session. Several noticeable behavior observed by the teacher (a) did not talk to teacher in the class (b) was not bringing notebook and book on daily basis (c) always keep head down in the classroom (d) used to spend too much time in washroom. It was not the fault of child but the completely fault of parent but child suffered whole academic year which were resulted in poor academic performance, poor self image and low confidence. She was younger than her classmates.
- Lack of understanding the language of text(Unable to read properly and face difficulty in understand meaning of text
Wise teacher and parent develop student reading skill properly. Basically language helps a child to express his emotion, passion and knowledge rationally which develops confidence in a child. Teacher focuses on speaking and reading skill. If a child is weak in speaking and reading, it may be possible that gradually s/he may be identified as weak learner.
- Frequently absent from the class due to various reason
Curriculum is designed properly and accurately based on available men, method and materials which we need to learn in systematically in one academic session. If a child misses one day in the class room which increases burden of a child. Child has to face two current challenges (i) s/he has to complete yesterday’s homework and class work by today and also to learn new thing which has been taught by the teacher in today classroom. If a child becomes lazy and linger to complete the topic, these untouched topics with other learning lesson create a havoc and stress on a child. Now child develops a habit of delaying the designed task and gradually child becomes weak learner.
- Health problems
If a child is suffering from a disease or falls ill very often then child face a mental traumatic situation to fill the gap of learning. Child starts neglecting various learning topics and frames a negative attitude towards learning which resulted in weak academic performance.
- School environment
We heard a proverb, “friendship makes a man wise”. Only two things bring a massive change in an individual’s life (1) education (2) friendship. School provides a strong platform for learning. An individual gets proper education and friends in a school. School environment plays crucial role for holistic development of a child. Good education and good friend lay the foundation of an integrated personality. If anyone misses in a school, child becomes an academic poor performer. Child becomes a torn and conflicted personality.
- Bad company(become a member of non –academic group)
एक एक दोस्त की प्रकृति दूसरे मित्र के व्यक्तित्व को प्रभावित करती है. The nature of a friend affects the other friend’s personality. It affects both the ways. A person with negative attitude scatters negativity in his surrounding and a person with positive attitude spreads the fragrance of positivity in his surroundings. If a child develops a strong bond with negative students, gradually he also learns negative habits and manner. Initially it may increase slowly but further it becomes his nature. A negative child’s bad company has adverse effect on other child personality. Bad friendship works like a slow poison in holistic development of child.
Lack of interest in academics (reading, writing, mathematics)
Learning is always difficult but when we talk about academic learning then it is too much difficult. A child can take challenge to reach highest score in a game but the moment learning topic is slight difficult to learn the students leave that topic at that point only. Nowadays it is too much difficult task for a parent to develop a habit of sitting at a place and perform all necessary academic work i.e. reading, writing, and learning. These are basically system oriented problems. Students do not want to do hard and parent does not give proper attention right from the beginning. If a child does not show interest in a particular subject, parent cannot linger it for a long time otherwise child forms a negative attitude towards learning.
- Boring lesson by less motivated educator/ poor teaching techniques
Teacher brings massive change in a child’s life but if a teacher teaches a lesson uninterestedly, child forms a negative learning attitude. If a teacher uses poor teaching techniques then child shows less interest in learning those subjects’ topics. Teacher is equally responsible for poor academic performance of a child.
- Error threatening environment (developing a negative attitude “better to excuse”)
Since learning is difficult phenomena, a child should be under keen observation of a parent and a teacher. Parent and teacher’s keen observation helps a child to grow in a proper direction. Too much observation and checks may develop a sense of rigidness. Too many checks may create error threatening environment for a child. Wise parent’s keen observation, vigilant nature and proper guidance help a child to grow as an integrated personality. When a child faces so much threaten, s/he may develop a negative learning attitude and may always give so many excuses for poor academic performance.
Many more reasons (Pupil, Parent, Teacher, Society or other stakeholder)
A child academic performance depends on thousand of factor i.e. students self learning desire, parenting, and various stakeholder of an educational institute. Child academic performance improves if all stakeholders work for the holistic development of a child.
Holistic developments of a child depend on his parent ways of upbringing. In fact, a child is never ever less than other child.
एक बच्चे का समग्र विकास उनके माता-पिता के पालन-पोषण के तरीकों पर निर्भर करता है। वास्तव में, एक बच्चा कभी दूसरे बच्चे से कम नहीं होता है।
Rajeev Ranjan
Indian Educationist
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