It’s a new school year. The headline of a local paper reads: “Only 179 Days to Go Before Summer Vacation Begins.”

An area supermarket chain, trying to be cute in advertising school supplies, runs a radio ad in which the word “school” is never spoken but is always negatively referenced: “Remember that place where you had to sit still all day?”

A DJ on a radio station interviews children on the first day of school. “What is your favorite part of the day?” the announcer asks. “Recess!” answers a little girl with a lisp. The DJ rewards her response with laughter and a prize - prompting the next three kids to come up with variations on the same theme: “recess,” “lunch,” “going home.” More laughter. More prizes.

Argh! There’s something very wrong with this picture. Just what are American values around education anyway?

Learning Can Be Joyful

Learning and, more importantly, the drive for learning is a natural part of being human. The greatest gift we can give our children is a life-long enthusiasm for learning new things.

Remember our babies? Every moment was a moment of learning. Everything in the environment was touched, smelled, tasted, turned over, and examined. Every day was filled with curiosity and insatiable exploration. Watch any two-year-old and you’ll see a learning machine. Talk to a preschooler about almost anything and you’ll find yourself having to think about it in a new way. Put a three-year-old on a playground where no one speaks his language and watch how easily he learns words and phrases by the end of the day.

How do we make sure that this natural drive for learning isn't snuffed out by the first grade? It really is up to us. Like everything else, we communicate how much we value education and learning in hundreds of direct and not-so-direct ways each and every day. We don't have to say a thing. The kids know what we think is important and what we don't by how and how much we talk about a subject. A friend of mine says that kids pick up our attitudes through the soles of their feet!

So - clear out any negative feelings you yourself may harbor from your own school days, brush off your attitude regarding “no more pencils, no more books,” and keep your child's natural thirst for knowing alive. There really are many, many practical things you can do. Why not renew your commitment to your child's education this year by resolving to incorporate a few of these ideas into your family’s routines?

Ten Tips for Keeping the Joy Alive

Be joyful. The most important factor for keeping the joy of learning alive for your children is to be joyful about it yourself. Parents who are attentive and excited about their children’s schooling (and their own) usually have children who are attentive and excited about school.

Take on a new challenge for yourself that is visible to your kids. Work on a project while the kids do their homework. Let them see you figuring out how to do something that is sometimes hard. Let them see your satisfaction in learning.

Make time to read to your children every day that you can. Shoot for at least four days each week. Read chapter books aloud as a family or read books that are age-appropriate for each child. Ham it up! Give the characters voices. And here's the most important part – show the kids you are involved with the story by commenting on the action and by asking them to make connections or to guess what will happen next.

Use your local library. I know many families in our town who make a big ritual for their kids out of getting their own library cards. Until a kid can sign his or her name, he or she has to use a parent's card. For these families, getting a library card is a sign of growing up. With card(s) in hand, go to the library regularly. Stay awhile to browse. Then bring home a pile. At our house, we have a special canvas bag that we bring for carrying all the books. During the week, we always return the books to the bag after reading from them so we won't have to do one of those frantic book hunts when the time for the next week's trip to the library rolls around.

Share interesting things with your children. You don't have to be an expert. As a matter of fact, it's better if you are not. Puzzling things out together will encourage your child's thinking skills. Out for a walk? Show them that the leaves on trees have different shapes. "Hmmm. I wonder why that is?" Making pancakes? Ask the kids why bubbles pop open on the tops as you cook the first side.

Look it up. One of the most important things you can give your children is comfort with looking things up. Let the kids know when you don't know an answer. Get excited about looking for it. Show them how much fun it can be to track down information on the Internet, in the dictionary, or in an encyclopedia. Make sure that a dictionary is handy in the kitchen. Bring field guides of plants and birds on your vacation.

Become involved with your children's school. Volunteer to help with the annual book sale, the playground clean up, or whatever events help keep the school going. Be willing to help out in the classroom. Ask your child's teacher for ideas about how to help. Get to know the teachers and staff.

Talk about education. That means asking your kids about their day. That means spending time around the dinner table talking about what they are learning. That means not grilling and drilling the kids but instead sharing stories and asking questions that make them - and you - think.

Play word games and board games that hone skills. Have a family Scrabble tournament. Too difficult for individuals to do alone? Create parent/child(ren) teams. Buy an easy crossword puzzle book. Work on it together. Please. Don't be deadly serious about something that is supposed to be family fun. If you are not laughing and having a good time with the games, you are undoing all the good you were intending to do by playing them.

Use car time as learning time. Play tapes of good books on long rides. Make a game out of the multiplication tables or common spelling words. You don't have to set it up as a competition between the kids. Instead, you can see how long it takes the "team" of kids in the car to answer, say, 20 questions or problems. Then see if they can beat their own time. (I always saved the “ones” table for the four-year-old so that he could be on the team too.)

Enthusiasm is contagious. If you don't have it, fake it. Yes. Fake it! If you think your child's education is important, you need to behave as if it is. Often enough, when parents make the decision to be involved in their children's learning in new and more active ways, they find themselves getting genuinely excited and interested.

Only 89 Days to Go Before School Begins Again.”

I’ll know that this generation of parents has succeeded in shifting attitudes towards learning when I see a June headline that reads “Only 89 Days to Go Before School Begins Again.” I’ll know that we really value our schools when a radio ad begins with something like “Remember when you got to be in a place where you had to do nothing but learn new things every day?” I’ll know that our kids are getting the right message when a DJ asks, “What’s your favorite part of the day?” and kids say things like “writing stories,” “figuring out stuff in the science lab,” or “talking about new ideas.” Then we’ll all deserve prizes!