There is much we can learn from our children. Their world is a world of simple and unadorned truths, uncomplicated by the legion of complexities and competing considerations that too often define and dictate our lives as adults. And so it goes with education. By any objective measure, our schools and our students are underperforming. But how we fix our schools has been an ongoing source of national (and international) debate for decades. Learning theories abound. Instructional designs abound. School turn around plans abound. Google "school reform" and you'll pull up over 20,000,000 hits. The volume of time, energy and work placed into answering the question "How do we fix our schools?" is simply astounding.
But there is one simple truth about education that I have learned from my 6 year old son.
Every weekday morning, the alarm goes off at 6:30am and I gently nudge him to wake him up. He looks at me, groans, and often says....."Dad, do I have to go to school today?" I smile, tell him "yes," and turn on the television so he can get his morning fix of Spongebob Squarepants. Getting him dressed can be an ordeal; sometimes, depending on his mood, my son will stage a Ghandi-like sit down protest, but I manage to get him out the door, in the car and into the school.
His mood is generally glum.
Then I pick him up. He is renewed; changed. He comes bouncing out of the school door, smiling, happy, excited. I ask him, "How was your day?" He always replies "good." Then he tears into his bookbag and papers go flying as he eagerly shows me what he's learned today. This is not manufactured. This is genuine enthusiam. For him.....this isn't work. This is actually, dare I say it, fun.
Wow.
So what is the lesson from my son?
It is simply this--that school should be fun. That learning should magical. That the process of discovery should be exciting. If we understand that, if we start there, then, perhaps, we have locked onto one simple truth that will allow us, at long last, to improve our schools and to create social infrastructures (because if you think of it, that's really what school is) that truly facilitate better teaching and learning.
But there is one simple truth about education that I have learned from my 6 year old son.
Every weekday morning, the alarm goes off at 6:30am and I gently nudge him to wake him up. He looks at me, groans, and often says....."Dad, do I have to go to school today?" I smile, tell him "yes," and turn on the television so he can get his morning fix of Spongebob Squarepants. Getting him dressed can be an ordeal; sometimes, depending on his mood, my son will stage a Ghandi-like sit down protest, but I manage to get him out the door, in the car and into the school.
His mood is generally glum.
Then I pick him up. He is renewed; changed. He comes bouncing out of the school door, smiling, happy, excited. I ask him, "How was your day?" He always replies "good." Then he tears into his bookbag and papers go flying as he eagerly shows me what he's learned today. This is not manufactured. This is genuine enthusiam. For him.....this isn't work. This is actually, dare I say it, fun.
Wow.
So what is the lesson from my son?
It is simply this--that school should be fun. That learning should magical. That the process of discovery should be exciting. If we understand that, if we start there, then, perhaps, we have locked onto one simple truth that will allow us, at long last, to improve our schools and to create social infrastructures (because if you think of it, that's really what school is) that truly facilitate better teaching and learning.
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