Thursday, February 16, 2012

School As Experienced by [Too Many] Young Children

My sister just sent me this little funny -- I don't know who wrote it -- but it resonates with me because all too often kids experience school not as a place that cultivates creativity, imagination and interest in our endlessly fascinating world, but as a place where they are required to conform, sit silently and listen to others tell them about subjects in the curriculum.

SCHOOL
A little girl had just finished her first week of school. 'I'm just wasting my time,' she said to her mother. 'I can't read, I can't write, and they won't let me talk!' 

Not so funny, really.

3 comments:

Brenda said...

This is so sad and so wrong especially when you think of all that the very young learn before they ever go to a school. They learn an oral language, sometimes more than one. They learn about how to get what they want. They learn how to collaborate with peers and with family. They learn how to do many sports and physical fetes impossible for their parents. They know a lot about how the world works and have a huge desire to learn more. School needs to be an environment to inspire passionate commitment to learning; students creating artifacts of value to society; contributing their ideas to solve the world's problems; collaborating to do worthwhile work; and sometimes working alone... For a lucky few, this is their school experience, much more like their pre-school experience.

Lynn M said...

One of my boys said something similar (though a little more harsh) when I asked how his school day was.
"Well, if their whole purpose is to bore little kids to death, they succeeded!"
Knowing he had great teachers, I personally think it had more to do with not being able to talk as much as he wanted!
:) Lynn

Unknown said...

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