I was trying to get my work done for the first day of school tomorrow but I got distracted by a Medium article written by Philip Kovacs, "An Open Letter to my Son's Kindergarten Teacher".
I wish my dad would have written this letter 13 years ago to my teacher.
By reading Kovacs article you'll realize how he is basically against the traditional paradigms of education. Like in most schools, the Kindergarden his 5 year old kid will be attending has a specific curriculum as to what the kids will do and what they will have learned by the end of the year. Th ey wi ll all know how to count and write numbers between 0 to 20. They will all have "published" their writing (keep in mind none of them know how to write), they will all have to memorize a set of sight words, and they will all undergo a 40 day testing schedule. Do you see the pattern?
They will all. They will all. They will all. They will all.
That was the first point Kovac made to the teacher, "WHY ARE WE TRYING TO MAKE ALL KIDS COMMON?". I couldn't agree with him more and I think that one of the most important aspects of education is P E R S O N A L I Z A T I O N because every human being is different. Some people can learn numbers quickly, others will take a little longer to do so. Some people are naturally better at art, others can barely draw a stick figure. Nonetheless, regardless of your speed or ability, with a little bit of effort and commitment, we are all capable of achieving certain things, so why set a limit as to how much we can achieve? Why set a limit as to how many numbers we should learn in a year, or what types of things we can learn to draw?
One of the summer requirements for Kovacs kid was to memorize a set of sight words to prepare him for class. In his letter, he explains how he left the words untouched, and instead, he and his kid spent the summer building a robot out of a giant box, swimming, running, and goofing around.
Those are the summers I most miss of my childhood.
You see, for Mr. Phillip's, "KIDS SHOULDN'T HAVE TO MEMORIZE RANDOM BITS OF INFORMATION WITHOUT SOME SORT OF CONTEXT TO HOUSE THOSE BITS IN." To him, "KIDS SHOULD BE ENGAGED IN AUTHENTIC, CHALLENGING TASKS THAT WILL, AS AGE PERMITS, REQUIRE THE USE OF NUMBER TO, FOR EXAMPLE, BUILD A FORT AND THEN DETERMINE WHICH WORDS BEST DESCRIBE IT."
To be perfectly honest, I believe that this doesn't simply apply to kids but it applies to anyone who is in a constant quest for learning. Through my experiences in the IA I've learned how meaningful and rewarding it is to be constantly engaged with the real world. Our documentary unit is the perfect example of this. At no point throughout the unit were we given a list of "sight words" that we had to learn. Nonetheless, by immersing ourselves into the world of economics, in my case the world of micro credit lending, I learned so much new vocabulary simply because it allowed me to deepen the understanding I had of my topic. In other words, the curiosity that we had towards learning new words came from the mere passion that we had towards the topic we were researching.
I wish my dad would have written this letter 13 years ago to my teacher.
By reading Kovacs article you'll realize how he is basically against the traditional paradigms of education. Like in most schools, the Kindergarden his 5 year old kid will be attending has a specific curriculum as to what the kids will do and what they will have learned by the end of the year. Th ey wi ll all know how to count and write numbers between 0 to 20. They will all have "published" their writing (keep in mind none of them know how to write), they will all have to memorize a set of sight words, and they will all undergo a 40 day testing schedule. Do you see the pattern?
They will all. They will all. They will all. They will all.
That was the first point Kovac made to the teacher, "WHY ARE WE TRYING TO MAKE ALL KIDS COMMON?". I couldn't agree with him more and I think that one of the most important aspects of education is P E R S O N A L I Z A T I O N because every human being is different. Some people can learn numbers quickly, others will take a little longer to do so. Some people are naturally better at art, others can barely draw a stick figure. Nonetheless, regardless of your speed or ability, with a little bit of effort and commitment, we are all capable of achieving certain things, so why set a limit as to how much we can achieve? Why set a limit as to how many numbers we should learn in a year, or what types of things we can learn to draw?
One of the summer requirements for Kovacs kid was to memorize a set of sight words to prepare him for class. In his letter, he explains how he left the words untouched, and instead, he and his kid spent the summer building a robot out of a giant box, swimming, running, and goofing around.
Those are the summers I most miss of my childhood.
You see, for Mr. Phillip's, "KIDS SHOULDN'T HAVE TO MEMORIZE RANDOM BITS OF INFORMATION WITHOUT SOME SORT OF CONTEXT TO HOUSE THOSE BITS IN." To him, "KIDS SHOULD BE ENGAGED IN AUTHENTIC, CHALLENGING TASKS THAT WILL, AS AGE PERMITS, REQUIRE THE USE OF NUMBER TO, FOR EXAMPLE, BUILD A FORT AND THEN DETERMINE WHICH WORDS BEST DESCRIBE IT."
To be perfectly honest, I believe that this doesn't simply apply to kids but it applies to anyone who is in a constant quest for learning. Through my experiences in the IA I've learned how meaningful and rewarding it is to be constantly engaged with the real world. Our documentary unit is the perfect example of this. At no point throughout the unit were we given a list of "sight words" that we had to learn. Nonetheless, by immersing ourselves into the world of economics, in my case the world of micro credit lending, I learned so much new vocabulary simply because it allowed me to deepen the understanding I had of my topic. In other words, the curiosity that we had towards learning new words came from the mere passion that we had towards the topic we were researching.
My favorite part of the letter was when Mr. Phillips told the teacher what he asked from her class. He said "I'd like my son to end the year a little kinder, a little more courageous, and a little more compassionate…It would also be incredible if, in the course of all that competition, he learns perseverance, impulse, control, resiliency, and how to think about thinking. Most importantly, I need him to leave your classroom loving to learn. I think we can change the world's trajectory by raising inquisitive beings, and the place to start is in your classroom."
I remember that when I was small I was a lot more like Mr. Phillips described. I would have fun by doing the silliest of things, I was always curious of what was unknown to me, I was much less afraid to take risks, and I loved to learn. Throughout middle school and part of high school, I feel that I lost much of this. I was burnt out. I had so much to do all the time and rarely saw the relevancy in what I was doing that my focus was grades, grades, grades. As I got older, it seemed to just get worse. I saw myself forced to spend less time on doing the things I loved, the things that instilled in me a true passion for learning such as baking, playing soccer, and dancing flamenco in order to finish my HW.
After a year in the IA, however, I feel that the little his that was somewhere inside of me has been brought to life. I have an intrinsic drive to learn new things simply because I'm curious about them, because I see purpose in the work I do, and because I'm in an environment where we learn to be a little kinder, a little more courageous, a little more compassionate. We learn perseverance, impulse, control, resiliency, and how to think about thinking.
We leave the classroom loving to learn.