If We Knew How to Trust
we see the amazing
effort
young kids put into
learning to walk and talk
(this work is
their play),
and we know they are
capable
of miraculous feats of
learning.
if only we knew how to trust
their ability to
continue learning
just as powerfully and
miraculously,
maybe we could build a
school system
that would honor every
child’s fierce desire
to master the world’s
skills.
their differences
would no longer sort them
into good, mediocre,
and bad students,
but into artists, scientists, poets, musicians, mathematicians,
writers, inventors, leaders, organizers, and more.
and each child would
be many of these,
their differences
adding to their strength as a community,
their school an
ecosystem of learning.
written by Sue
VanHattum, inspired by Lisa Cooley, 2014
Posts
Why is this trust so hard?
ReplyDeleteAnother perspective that compliments this: everything we are trying to teach them was cool or exciting for someone at sometime. For example, even double entry bookkeeping was a major innovation!
I've started teaching a little programming class at my child's school. Basically, my approach is to combine these two ideas. I show them some cool things and then encourage them to play. Mostly, this involves not standing in their way or removing some minor obstacle or misunderstanding that is blocking them. The big obstacles, though, they get the joy and satisfaction of tackling themselves.