The truth about school is it doesn’t matter.
At least, not like you think.

Maybe I should refine that; for most of the students you teach, the content you teach matters less than how you teach.

The Truth about School PIN

Students are already half-formed by their families and home life. Educators are not easily able to overcome, or refashion students so much as to reorient them. Teachers can offer them different lenses to look through. You can offer them options, ways of being in the world.

It isn’t that what you do as a classroom teacher doesn’t matter. It is that how you do it matters more than what you do.

What I want for my children from school:

The ability to thrive within diversity.

Teach children how to speak to those with which they do not agree. Students need to know how to appreciate differences and value them.

Teach children the majority can always find value in the minority.

A growth mindset.

As children learn, teach them to be kind to themselves and others. The rate of learning is expected to be different between any two people, even when school acts in the contrary.

Teach them that learning is a life long process and they must learn to enjoy it.

To love learning.

More than memorizing independent events and facts, I want my children to be interested, fi not delighted, to learn new things.

Students should make a connection and be excited by the new knowledge and the way that information matters to their world.

 

Most of the students in our schools are learning without you; the content you teach matters less than how you teach.
It isn’t that what you do as a classroom teacher doesn’t matter. It is that how you do it matters more than what you do.