My youngest child is doing amazing things at school. He’s doing things that are exciting his teacher. She’s so excited, she’s sharing what he’s doing with other teachers. His former teacher came and took a picture of what he’d done. She uses it to show parents what sorts of things kids who move on to the next level do with the materials in the classroom. The only problem with her approach is that she assumed that he was doing something he was taught by his new teacher. He isn’t. What he did, he did on his own. He invented it. He came up with a new way of working with the materials that his new teacher never learned in her training. She didn’t instruct him; he’s instructing her. And it’s exciting.
My son received no grade for his work. He received the satisfaction of being given the time, space, and permission to explore his world, manipulate it, and go down his own path. By contrast, he got bored doing Rocket Math in his old school. Single-digit addition, as fast as you can, as many as you can, while being timed? You can watch the progression of mastery in his Rocket Math scores. Better, faster, more: upward curve. Then, slower, fewer: downward curve. Did my child forget how to add single digits? Nope. He simply mastered it. He got bored. He lost interest. He moved on. The only problem was that he didn’t have the time, space, and permission to move on. So, up went the flags… His teacher got excited, but it wasn’t the kind of excitement that encourages growth. It was the kind that kills self esteem and encourages unquestioning compliance.
I stop to look at myself in the mirror every day, and I see a person who, at 40, still struggles to overcome the effects of my indoctrination. I want something different for my children, and they are getting it. Both my boys are. I see the same exploratory mechanisms, the same builders of confidence, at work in both their classrooms. I want my children to be better at being themselves than I am at being myself. Trust me, I’m not delusional; I know they will struggle to find their place in the world and in human society. But I hope they will struggle to find meaning in life or a purpose to drive them or a place where they will fit in, not struggle to embrace and celebrate who they are inside.
Illuminate Possibilities 