103. This is difficult to let go of
[From Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams http://www.squidoo.com/stop-stealing-dreams]
Those of us who have successfully navigated the industrial education system like it when people are well informed, when sentences are grammatically correct, and when our peers understand things like what electrons do and how the scientific method works.
Does the new economy demand that we give this up?
No. But applying ever more effort and rigor to ensure that every kid knows every fact is insane.
We’ve failed at that. We’ve failed miserably. We set out to teach everyone everything, en masse, with embarrassingly bad results. All because we built the system on a foundation of compliance.
What if we gave up on our failed effort to teach facts? What if we put 80 percent of that effort into making huge progress in teaching every kid to care, to set goals, to engage, to speak intelligently, to plan, to make good decisions, and to lead?
If there’s one classroom of beaten-down kids who scored well on their PSATs due to drill and practice, and another class of motivated dreamers, engaged in projects they care about and addicted to learning on a regular basis, which class are you going to bet on?
If we can give kids the foundation to dream, they’ll figure out the grammar and the history the minute it helps them reach their goals and make a difference.
Tags: stopstealingdreams
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