Education occurs in the context of a relationship between teachers and children in a supportive and welcoming learning environment. Before any learning can take place, children need to feel safe, cared for and personally supported. Students are not simply robotic hard drives waiting to be crammed with information. They need to be understood in all their complexity and individuality, including learning style, social class, culture, racial background and life experiences, if teachers are to effectively guide their learning.
The most successful curriculum grows out of students’ lived experiences and interests. Basic reading, writing and math skills are best incorporated into subject matter drawn from students’ lives. For example, teachers can use sports scores to motivate students to learn math or costumes and role playing to engage students in studying such historical material as the Civil Rights Movement, ancient African, Chinese or Aztecan kingdoms or the French revolution, coupled with the use of art to encourage students to reflect on how a story connects to their lives.
Monotonous drilling of stand-alone skills and mechanical memorizing for tests ignores the multiple dimensions and connectedness of the human mind. Our brain doesn’t put subjects into silos. We need to pull information and understandings together and integrate what we know to make sense of new ideas and topics. Multidisciplinary project, which incorporate skills in reading, writing, speaking and artwork, capture the interests of young people far more easily than work sheets and text books..
An important educational principle is that “play is children’s work.” From play, children learn about themselves and others. They also build their physical capacities. In sports, they develop cognitive capacity in spatial relations, understanding cause and effect and social skills like sharing and team work. Having fun helps young people learn to socialize and discover new ways of learning.
Small class size is vital, especially in the lower grades, where 15 to 18 students should be the maximum number. Teachers can only get to know a limited number of children well and are best able to develop their students’ potentials when their numbers are manageable. In addition, adequate and varied resources from which teachers and students can choose, a rich and nurturing support system of counselors and social services and a positive learning environment for both the classroom and the school that embraces the child’s cultural and racial milieu are needed.
Parents should feel they are strong partners with teachers in their children’s learning, not merely consumers who choose the “best” schools they can find and to which they can get their children admitted. Numerous studies have shown that children learn best when parents feel welcome and supported by the children’s teachers and other school staff, as well as when parents feel their voice is heard and they are full participants in making school policy.
A teacher’s work is to guide student learning. Real learning includes grappling with topics that have meaning to each of us as individuals. Thus, teachers need autonomy and flexibility to seek out what interests their students and to find ways to connect these interests to academic skills, knowledge and understandings. Teachers also need opportunities for their own growth and professional development.
A prescribed one-size-fits-all core curriculum devoid of a child’s culture and heritage makes this work impossible. Test prep interferes profoundly with the dynamic process of learning, which connects what we already know to something new.
Students need to be excited about what they’re learning, proud of what they know and can do, and comfortable thinking like scientists or historians. Building skills in research, writing and quantitative reasoning and developing a capacity for complex critical and creative thinking are key and can be incorporated into topics that interest students. Thus, it makes good sense to study few topics in depth and not be so concerned about the number of subjects covered. Learning how to transfer what we’ve learned to different life contexts and learning how to learn should be the most important goals for education today.
The Independent Commission on Public Education is an independent multiracial grassroots education think tank made up of New Yorkers who are activist-educators, parents and grandparents. Visit www.icope.org for more information.
