Learning about Education and Reform

Hi, it's been a great while. I am almost an old, old teacher these days, but I am still constantly learning and considering. In the past couple of weeks, I have read John Merrow, Neil Postman, Mike Rose, Alfie Kohn, and assorted other authors about how education has never been defined in a non- controversial way. I would like to apply some of my new found learning to what I believe the purpose of education should be.

With the current trends in education, we are desperately measuring preset standards and trying to get every last child to fit these preconceived notions of what adults believe they should be. This is akin to banging one's head against a brick wall repeatedly for no good reason. If we re-adjusted our idea of education as a means for helping every person become the best that he or she as an individual is capable of being, we would be starting on the right track. This concept of education would be dangerously "radical" and probably challenging, but it would be doing right by our new generation. We need to listen more and lecture less. We need to encourage questions, not demand answers. We need to allow for thinking and to guide it toward new roads, not to the roads we are familiar with. We need to acknowledge that just because a child is not on grade level, that child is still valuable and not a failure. Grade levels are artificial constructs- they are economical, but they are not necessarily educational. We can demand compliance all we want, but unless the customer is told why, compliance will not occur.

We need to start treating students with respect for who they are, not with contempt for what we think they're not being or should be. We need to offer challenges and support growth. We need to stop testing concepts we don't have time to teach.