Topic 66 Are classmates a more important influence to a child?

Children's success at school depends on a lot of factors, excellent classmates, qualified teachers, good parenting and so on. Among all the factors, classmates play an important role in determining children's success.

Did the boys pal up with any other campers? — Мальчики подружились с кем-нибудь ещё из лагеря?

First, classmates are a great help in the academic studies of our children. Children spend most of their time at school with their classmates, sharing learning experiences among each other. No only are they competitors, but also they are learning pals (друзья, приятели) as well. When someone face difficulties in the learning process, he can seek immediate help from his classmates especially when teachers are not available at that moment. In some cases when courses relating to language teaching demand that students practice speaking in groups, cooperative classmates will be a great assistance to achieving the goal of effective learning.

Second, children acquire (приобретают) communication skills during their encounter with their classmates. Children who are able to establish good relationships with their classmates are more likely to achieve in their future career. Since a classroom consists of a group of people including teachers and students, they are just like a small society. If children can deal with everything appropriately (надлежащий) with their schoolmates at school, they are more likely to keep good terms with their colleagues in the future workplace. A Good relation with others is part of their success.

Finally, children have also obtained a great deal of life experience from their classmates. Being of the same age, children are easier to communicate with their generation than with their parents. As a result, they learn more from their counterparts (коллеги) than from their parents.

From those reasons, we can safely conclude that classmates are too important a factor to ignore and they are a more important influence than parents on children' success at school.