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I don't know if you have kids, I am guessing not, if I am wrong, my apologies. Knowing what your kids have due for school is not micromanaging its a core part of being a good parent. I know if my kid has a math test so it lets me sit down with him and review for his test, it allows me to ensure he knows the basis for whatever comes next in his curriculum. Terribly overbearing parents are not good but I think people a…
That's absolutely micromanaging and negative. The goal of school isn't just to pass the tests. If a kid fails to revise for a test, but it doesn't matter because their parent will just look up the schedule and force them to revise, then they learn nothing beyond what's in the test. If they fail to revise and as a result do badly at the test, then next time they might actually take the initiative and revise through th…
Not really. Schooling is largely targeted towards the great masses in the middle of the Bell curve. These kids will need help, prodding, and other forms of encouragement in order to keep their basic schoolwork up.
There are a smaller number of kids on the left and right tails that will, for the former, never make any effort; and for the latter, will require nothing other than support. That's just the way things are, I didn't make it that way, and there is nearly nothing that can be done to change it, and recognizing that fact will do more for most children than trying to pretend it doesn't exist.
The mass of kids who need the aid of their parents are helped when the parents can follow along. I have to use a system similar to the broken Swedish one for my kids. It's a mishmash of various systems, and sometimes teachers just give up and use something else, or use a less appropriate method (like a shared Google doc or similar). Keeping up with simple things like "when is the next math test" is a real chore.
While it would be great to be able to instill "initiative" into the souls of kids, it's unlikely to work. Unless you happen to know of a magick elixir that can do so, in which case there are a crapload of adults who could use a dose of this wizardry.
It helps to not romanticize children. Kids are dumb. Even the smart ones. They have little life experience, and their brains are still wired in such a way that they struggle to see consequences. Most of schooling is just a grind to slowly teach them enough basics that they can operate relatively efficiently. Left to their own devices, they will play games, eat candy, and believe that they will make a living as a Twitch streamer or something equally ridiculous.