If I’m hearing correctly, educational standards are worse than ever.
Teachers are saying that kids don’t just dislike reading more than a few words; they can’t.
They don’t just hate writing more than a few words; they can’t.
And even when they do write, you either can’t read it, or the grammar and spelling are so bad you might wish you couldn’t.
Indeed, if I understand what I am hearing, the world will soon be divided between the “writes” and the “not-writes”.
Well, I don’t remember it being like that when I was back in school.
I remember reading many classic and contemporary books as a kid. We all used to make lots of notes and write many long, clever essays.
Yes, we used to learn punctuation, grammar and spelling, but we also learned how to formulate arguments and structure our thoughts succinctly.
Indeed, things sound so bad that if I had a Time Machine, I would immediately rip my kids out of school and send them back 30 years to relive and experience my golden age of education. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Then, up-skilled and ready after a few years of proper schooling in the golden basics (with the added bonus of superior character building and strong values), I would return them to the present day, where they would now have all they need to flourish. Furthermore, they would also be anxious-free because they would have avoided the smartphone epidemic.
Sadly, I don’t have a Time Machine.
I have questions.
Why are we always so nostalgic about the past?
I’m pretty confident I heard the same comments from teachers (almost to the word) when I sat in my first teacher staff room 25 years ago. And I am pretty confident that the same conversation was being had 100 years ago in some old stuffy school room, too.
Why aren’t kids more committed to reading, writing (and counting…) beyond the basics?
The answer is that they do not have our nostalgia. They see the world as it is, and the world is telling them that they will get through just fine.
Those who need to write well — will.
Those who need to read well — will.
Those who need to count well — will.
Nature finds a way.
There is only so much we can expect kids to learn without going back in time. We seem to think they need to know everything we were taught, everything else we think they will need in the future, and everything else (it seems) in the middle.
How can they possibly work out what’s important when we insist that everything is important?
I suspect that our kids are seeing something we are not.
What’s worth learning?
This is one of my favourite questions in education and is the heart of this article.
David Perkins introduced the idea of “lifeworthy learning” in his book Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World. He says what our children need to learn should focus on what matters, not what we think should matter.
So, when we talk about long-form reading and long-form writing, for instance, my view is that they do matter. However, they matter more for the disciplines that underpin those two particular skills than the skills themselves: the ability to stick with something without being distracted for long periods. But that can be a difficult argument for kids, and it also assumes that there is no other way of instilling those skills.
There is an adage I like:
When kids learn what they love, they love what they learn.
I think that’s what this is all about.
In my present, kids don’t seem to have a problem doing things when they want to. If you want to see kids concentrate without being distracted for extended periods (and problem-solving, communicating, collaborating, and all that), come and watch my kids playing the latest Zelda game on the Switch together. It’s impressive.
“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
This is one of my favourite lines in the Back to the Future film. It reminds me that the path forward in education doesn’t have to follow the same route we took.
And here it is: the world has changed, and so have our kids.
We can’t go back to the future, nor can we look to the past for all the answers.
Follow Serendipities by Email
Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of any new posts by email:
Serendipities 