In and Out of School
There is evidence showing that children learn at home how to behave at home (that is where the parents have power), and they learn outside the home how to behave outside the home. If you want to improve the way children behave in school – for instance, by making them more diligent and less disruptive in the classroom – then improving their home environment is not the way to do it. What you need is a school-based intervention. That is where the teachers have power. A talented teacher can influence a whole group of kids. The teacher’s biggest challenge is to keep this group of kids from splitting up into two opposing fractions: one pro-school and pro-learning, the other anti-school and anti-learning. When that happens, the differences between the groups widen.