July 22, 2024
By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President
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I write frequently about the disconnect between how children are taught and how they learn. But as I write in the summer issue of EL Magazine, we do not have to teach challenging academics or make school interesting and meaningful. Kids are curious, energetic, and full of ideas and questions. And we shouldn’t ask them to stop being kids when they walk through the schoolhouse door.
I hope you’ll read my article, which includes 7 Ways to Make School Worth Kids’ Time.
1. Examine underlying assumptions.
2. Engage empathy.
3. Broaden the definition of success.
4. Connect the mind, heart, and body.
5. Put kids in charge.
6. Embrace awe.
7. Change the narrative for families.
There is much emphasis placed on the need to teach students to sit still, be quiet in the hallways, and to serve as passive recipients of the lessons their teachers deliver. Yet we know that movement and play are integral to authentic, deep learning, and that children who take an active role in their education are more engaged and motivated.
The challenges that continue to plague education post-pandemic exacerbate this contradiction. Even as we acknowledge the growing mental health crisis for young people and the attending rise in absenteeism across the board, schools are prioritizing test scores and grades as indicators for a return to “normal” – a “normal,” I might add, that was not serving students or teachers particularly well prior to 2020.
When it’s time to start planning for the fall, I invite you to craft your schools and classrooms around your students’ ideas, interests, and needs. Better yet, craft your schools and classrooms with your students. Then you’ll have dozens of curious, energetic co-conspirators to help you.
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Hooray For Monday is an award-winning weekly publication by Center for Inspired Teaching, an independent nonprofit organization that invests in and supports teachers. Inspired Teaching provides transformative, improvisation-based professional learning for teachers that is 100% engaging – intellectually, emotionally, and physically. Our mission is to create radical change in the school experience – away from compliance and toward authentic engagement.
