Poster child Glynis, age 9
What separates one 9-year-old from the next?
September 26, 2009
Kristin Rushowy
EDUCATION REPORTER
This is the life of 9-year-old Glynis Weir Parkin: likes school, loves her teachers, takes Highland dancing and swimming lessons, plays piano and the recorder and gets homework two nights a week.
The Grade 4 student lives in a good neighbourhood, has parents who are involved in her education – they spent Thursday evening at the school's curriculum night, in fact – and her school has a positive environment.
In short, she's the poster child for achievement at her age, according to a Statistics Canada report released yesterday on 9-year-olds and school.
The report is based on participants in the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, as it's formally known – a long-term study of Canadian children designed to follow their development and well-being from birth to early adulthood, covering a range of topics including health, physical development, learning and behaviour. Results are used by governments, universities and policy-making organizations.
The report, based on 2006-07 data of 3,379 children, found:
- Children from very low income households tended to have lower achievement than more affluent children on most measures, but many of the differences were not statistically significant;
- Children with higher attention skills were less likely than others to have repeated a grade, to be participating in special education, or to be receiving tutoring or extra help for academic problems;
- Repeating a grade, participating in special education, and receiving extra help or tutoring for academic problems tended to occur together; and
- Few differences appeared between girls and boys in the study, or between income groups in their education environments.
And, significantly, the study notes, "Most 9-year-olds had parents who were actively involved in their children's schooling, talking with their children daily about school work and school friends, monitoring homework and participating in activities at their children's school."
"I'm good at reading, writing, French and English," says Glynis, who is enrolled in French immersion at the Runnymede public school in Toronto's High Park area.
"My favourite class is English, because I get to speak English."
She likes gym class, also art, and while she does fairly well in math, she's not as keen on it. "It's boring."
Glynis says she's doing all kinds of great things at school: learning about rocks, minerals and volcanoes in science, pictograms in math, how to play the violin in music class and baseball and softball in gym, as well as journal writing.
"For curriculum night, we wrote down a paragraph about ourselves and our parents had to guess which one was ours. Then once they guessed, they opened up (a folded page) and there was a picture of the kid inside," she says.
Glynis wrote: "I am 9 years old. I am short, my hair is blond, my eyes are green and I'm good at swimming, gym and Highland dance. I like pigs, fish and pizza."
But, she quickly adds in an interview, "I'm talking pigs and fish as animals – not food."
She'd like to be a kindergarten teacher or a lawyer when she grows up.
In her spare time, she likes to play tag and house with her friends.
"We also play school where one person is a teacher and the others are students, and one is a bad kid," she says.
One of her favourite after-school activities is the Harry Potter League of Champions, run by a Runnymede teacher every Thursday.
Just like in the books, the kids are sorted into groups – Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin – and discuss the series' characters and plots and play games inspired by the novels, such as spell casting, protect-a-muggle, as well as a more human-friendly version of quidditch.
"We don't actually fly on broomsticks," Glynis adds. "But we play something like hockey."
Another bonus about school? "I also get to see my friends and I usually have a really nice teacher."
Toronto Star