"A look at what goes on in most classrooms these days makes it abundantly clear that when people think about education, they are not thinking about what it feels like to be a child, or what makes childhood an important and valuable stage of life in its own right. "
My favorite excerpt from this great editorial piece.
When I was working as a first grade teacher in an international school (following an American curriculum) I was constantly struggling with what I was expected to do and what I wanted to do with my students. In every weekly meeting my first grade team and I would discuss test results and testing for most of the time. There would be more exams and more strategies to get the students to get better results. In every meeting I would have to remind my co-workers that we are dealing with children! These are not little corporate puppets. They are just kids and we are worrying about how they do on some test rather than how they are enjoying learning the topic we are studying right now. How about how can we make this more interesting and engaging? How can we keep the love of learning and exploration alive in our students?
But instead we forced material down their throats to meet the deadline of finishing a curriculum to keep with the "standards." I was always behind all the other classes because I took time with my students to just let them be them. We had a lot of free time in the classroom ( and extra outside time, too!) and I almost never gave homework until parents started protesting.
This is one of the big reasons I love the Montessori method and homeschooling because my kids can be kids. They can practice the alphabet in their underwear or do a firefighter puzzle and then be inspired to start pretending to be a firefighter for the rest of the morning. They are free to be who they are and to do what interests them. How beautiful is that? I hope and pray Abe and Mimi can go through their childhood free of being forced fed information, sitting in a seat all day and stressing over exams. May they be free learners to learn at their own pace in their own way and ENJOY it 😌
My favorite excerpt from this great editorial piece.
When I was working as a first grade teacher in an international school (following an American curriculum) I was constantly struggling with what I was expected to do and what I wanted to do with my students. In every weekly meeting my first grade team and I would discuss test results and testing for most of the time. There would be more exams and more strategies to get the students to get better results. In every meeting I would have to remind my co-workers that we are dealing with children! These are not little corporate puppets. They are just kids and we are worrying about how they do on some test rather than how they are enjoying learning the topic we are studying right now. How about how can we make this more interesting and engaging? How can we keep the love of learning and exploration alive in our students?
But instead we forced material down their throats to meet the deadline of finishing a curriculum to keep with the "standards." I was always behind all the other classes because I took time with my students to just let them be them. We had a lot of free time in the classroom ( and extra outside time, too!) and I almost never gave homework until parents started protesting.
This is one of the big reasons I love the Montessori method and homeschooling because my kids can be kids. They can practice the alphabet in their underwear or do a firefighter puzzle and then be inspired to start pretending to be a firefighter for the rest of the morning. They are free to be who they are and to do what interests them. How beautiful is that? I hope and pray Abe and Mimi can go through their childhood free of being forced fed information, sitting in a seat all day and stressing over exams. May they be free learners to learn at their own pace in their own way and ENJOY it 😌
No comments:
Post a Comment