Response to a Response!

http://jonoaks.com/im-not-a-lazy-teacher/

I love getting responses to the ideas I put out. In fact the responses I get are the reason why I blog. Jon wrote about how he was fired up after reading my post, and I think by fired up he meant he wasn’t happy. The goal of this post is to clear up some things that I feel need explaining.

First of all, I agree with the title of his post. Jon is not a lazy teacher and I’m sure the lessons his students learn are valuable and even life changing. In fact many teachers get through to students in a way that is meaningful and life changing. Unfortunately the system that exists obstructs that much of the time. I never would ever call a teacher lazy. I have no misconceptions about the work teachers put in. I, of course, don’t understand the work of a teacher because I am not a teacher! But I would never say a teacher is lazy. In fact I often speak in defense of teachers when a friend makes a comment calling a teacher lazy. The only mention of the word lazy I made was the name calling of kids who hate school.

A part if Jon’s argument was that students should shape their education rather than take it the way it is and just hate it. And I must say I couldn’t agree more. Yet there’s a flaw. 1. We have classes we are required to take. Hence education can never become our own. 2. The classes that could become fun and interesting are often unable to due to things like testing and current models of rote learning. 3. Curiosity/asking questions often is hard for a student as the culture of school is answer answer answer. Students should ask questions I totally agree, but its hard to play an active role when school is one size fit all.

I really agreed with Jon on many things. Hope this clears things up.

Illness vs School

About two weeks ago I had a sore throat compounded by a stuffy nose, a cough and a headache. I had a sinus infection and I was thrilled. I’m not someone who enjoys feeling sick and I’m not someone who loves getting sympathy, so why was I happy about being sick?

I’m sure you already know why. I was happy to be sick because it meant I got to miss school!

We all know people who get excited to see there temperature rise above 100 degrees. We all know people who fake sick to get out of school. In fact, who hasn’t seen Ferris Bueller’s day off? The question is, why would kids rather suffer and lie than have to endure 6-7 hours at school?

The reality is that when someone hates something, they don’t want to do it! This is not rocket science. The other point that isn’t rocket science is that if people hate something, it should be changed. I know these conclusions are obvious, but people just shrug kids’ complaints off as laziness. Parents say “we went theough with it”, but in saying that they admit that school wasn’t something that they liked.

On another hand, school also causes sickness. Not just the depression and the mental sickness that comes with school but also the physical sickness that comes from keeping kids in seats instead of playing on the field. Or the stomach aches and headaches that go along with stress. In fact, it isn’t an understatement to say that school is a sick place.

Even with this knowledge, people still rationalize this version of school as necessary. Parents, teachers, even principals I urge you not to shrug off your child’s complaints. They aren’t being lazy. They are being humans. They are alive. Don’t stifle their living by forcing them to go to a place they hate. Don’t let their curiosity go to waste. Listen to their complaints. Learning can change, school doesn’t have to be this way.

Life doesn’t have to be Compartmentalized

Recently I was having a conversation with some friends. The subject of education came up. Usually this conversation always revolves around our frustration and the latest about stress we feel because of school. Naturally, we started talking about solutions and what we see as the point of education.

One friend began, he told us, you see its all about economics. We have to let kids have marketable skills, and we have to level the playing field for kids in inner cities without the resources people like we (my friends and I) have.

Another friend nodded his head and began by saying he thinks it’s all about democracy. Preparing kids to become responsible citizens and that leveling the playing field was part of democracy.

Lastly, another said he believed it was all about out competing other countries so as to keep America, the golden beacon to the rest of the world, on top.

No, this story didn’t happen. I made it up. But I’m recounting a typical conversation I overhear. To be honest, it is frustrating for me to hear this kind of thing. Not to say that anyone is wrong, though, I don’t see the point of education as being to enhance any country’s standing. In addition, I don’t believe America is a golden beacon to anyone.

Anyway, lets talk about the first two friends. Democracy of course is a good thing. So is innovation, new ideas and skills that go along thinking about education in terms of economics. Yet I feel something is seriously missing from both these friends.

You see, I’m not a philosopher or anything, but I think there is something to say for being happy. Democracy and fair/innovative economics is certainly part of that! But to say that it is the only part of being happy is a far cry from the truth. See, what we are missing from all this talk about education and what we are missing from education right now is the human side of things. Me, you, my friends, we are all people with distinct passions interests and dreams for the future. Therefore education must feel personalized and people must feel free to follow the paths they’d like. On the other side, we all share one thing, that is being human.

See, we often forget that in the debating and in the policies there are kids who suffer. I’ve often thought about whether or not people working for the College Board, principals or other people felt guilty about the sadness, stress, and emotional strain they put on kids. But I realized, they don’t see it as that. They see that they are enhancing kids lives and they are proud of the work they doing. They view education as a means of creating skilled people and enhancing peoples economic standing and therefore lifestyle. This of course is a good thing! Yet in doing so they take the human aspect out of education and therefore out of what other people deem success.

The human aspect must exist in everything we do. In fact not just the human aspect, but rather the life aspect. The everything aspect really. Us, animals, the world, its oceans, land, and everything else in it are part of everything we do. When we think about compartmentalized issues, in education things like just standardized testing for instance, we make an issue out of something that is just part of the bigger picture.

Skills are important, democracy is important, moving towards equality is important, but none of these are important without humans finding meaning and happiness.

Random Quotes of Mine

I don’t think the answer is more structured classes. It is not more rigorous standards. It is not “smarter teachers”. It is not smaller class sizes. It’s not a debate about teacher’s unions nor is it a debate about charter schools. It is not more discipline. It many deeper things. It finding passions and exploring them. It’s drawing connections to the world and the people who make it up.

I believe we all have passions. They just evolve and change as we learn more about the world. Explore.

When did it become acceptable to tell a person their vision for the world was unrealistic? Of course it’s unrealistic… If it was reality no one would have to envision it.

Ideas exist outside of how we’ve already created them in this world.

There are many types of people, two of these types are those that make the world, and others who merely become it.

Every problem has depth. That means every solution has depth. Not  an incomprehensible jumble of intricacies. But a coherent mesh of people and the complexities that make them human.

People don’t do things that they are about, the do things that they feel they have to do. Why don’t people do things with passion rather than become weekend warriors living for 2/7 of their life?

I am an idealist, and that is good.

Sekvacio

So remember the Global Classroom idea I told you about?

Well, the vision of my friend and I has come to the life in the form of a Facebook group called Sekvacio.

Sekvacio is a combination of the Esperanto term “Sekva Generacio”, meaning next generation. Esperanto was a language created with the goal of it becoming a universal language. Understanding between people of every corner of the world is the only thing that will bring us towards peace and harmony. Being that the goal of our group is to empower world thinkers, we believed Esperanto, a language for the world, and Next Generation, the people who will soon make our world tick, really summed up our purpose.

Sekvacio can become anything we want to make it. A platform for discussion at its most basic level, but from there. . . anything. Even coming to the realization that there is a whole world outside of our doors filled with people, places, ideas and wonder that we can experience is enough to just think about for years, but when we actually interact with each other even more doors are opened up. 

Sekvacio will foster connection, a world view, a view of the complex, an appreciation for culture and history, and so much more. 

A Ramble

WARNING: This is a ramble!

I have a lot of ideas.

Expressing these ideas, to this day, presents a problem for me. I wish I could take my mind and give it to someone else for a few minutes so they could see my ideas the way I do. I don’t mean this in an argumentative type of way, even though that is very important. What I mean is just explaining an idea can be very frustrating when you feel someone doesn’t see things the way you do.

Communication, as the saying goes, is key. But in addition to good communication, an important thing is to understand that people have different minds. That preconceived notions may skew something you say. That changing how another person sees something is incredibly difficult.

In explaining my ideas about life, learning and the world, I often encounter myself at a loss for how to best describe my ideas. They are too complex I suppose, but I guess saying that gives me more credit than I deserve. In reality, the cliche “Have an open mind”, really applies to understanding what I think and believe.

I’m not sure why it is hard to understand my ideas. I guess that it is even hard for me to understand my ideas. I know they are evolving. I know they are complicated. I know all my ideas are connected. Putting these two things, the complication and the connectedness of all things, together puts the world in a frame.

I can’t claim to have all the answers when talking about learning. I don’t have a step by step map to the a learning utopia, nor do I consider myself an expert AT ANYTHING. What I can provide though, is a knowledge that the problems we see in all things aren’t unsolvable. A knowledge that to solve the “unsolvable”, we must acknowledge complexities and connections that make up all of our problems. A total rethinking of how we learn has to include a rethinking of everything. Pinpointing certain problems will get us somewhere, but it can also just distract us from the big picture. Specific goals are good, but are a lot better in the context of larger ones. So fixing one aspect of school is important, but it won’t do much of anything unless it is along with the big picture.

Education is a complicated thing. It is affected by the “real world”, but also shapes the “real world”. In thinking about education we can’t keep it off in a bubble where solutions come without thinking about the rest of the world.

What we can Learn From my Dog

I was never a dog person. Since I got licked in the eye by my friends dog years ago, I’ve just been afraid. But since we got our dog, Mocha, about a year ago, I’ve had a pretty awesome time with her.

I believe we can learn a lot from Mocha. She is curious, she explores, she interacts with the world. On the most basic level, Mocha is learning. Just like Mocha, I think we are all naturally curious. The challenge is keeping that curiosity.

Mocha’s waking hours are spent begging for food, subsequently eating that food, barking at squirrels, running around the house, playing with her toys, and interacting with my family and me.

She has come a long way from the puppy she once was. She now knows not to fall for my pump fakes when we play fetch, and that she can jump up to the couch without our help. She still explores, she is still curious, she still learns.

I think we can learn a lot from her in this respect. She picks up on things from our world by interacting with us or by monitoring the outside world from her perch atop the windowsill.

Every kid has that instinct to learn, explore and interact. We pick up on patterns just by living. Of course we are more complicated than dogs. But ON the most basic level, kids and Mocha interact with the world and therefore learn. Not because they are told to, but because it is their instinct.

We have to take the idea of natural curiosity and natural learning and apply it to how we see school. Our world is a place with so much. Let us be kids, let us learn. We have to stay this curious forever.