Your Daily Focus: Education
Don’t let school stand in the way of a good education.
One of the greatest skills a child can learn is to be an independent learner. To be able to formulate a question, and then pursue it’s answer completely independently. This represents curiosity and an ability to problem-solve. It represents motivation, deduction, and persistence. What a beautiful combination of traits.
In keeping with this, I would recommend that as a parent you not enforce your child’s learning solely in a school environment. I would ask you to encourage your child to spend time studying topics of their own choosing, and not just the teacher and the educational curriculum committee’s choosing. In fact I would even go so far to say that the school system would be wise to simply support the independent learning of the students, and not force any curriculum upon them that is not solely of their own choosing.
I would say it is at least as important to spend time exploring topics of their own interest as it is doing homework. Let them perfect a skill that will be indispensable in their adult life: the ability to learn independently.
We all learn best when we are pursuing a topic of our own choosing, especially if it is accompanied by a life experience.
I love, love love what you say.
Although I come from a “self-made” environment, I went to university and even got my MBA. Still today, i try to learn as much by myself than i did at any other schools…(which at the end I’ve found quite rigid and boring).
I guess with kids is the same, putting knowledge on a practical basis, taking them to a field trip instead of the bio lab, trying to travel more to get that geography in place, go simply to the kitchen to see how many chemical changes are happening when we cook food, will open their eyes for more questions and see how beautiful life is and how much we can learn…(even without books!)
Mmmmmm, more “field trips” to the kitchen! Sounds wonderful. Thank you.
Well said!! I made the decision to homeschool my kids based almost entirely on the same basic concept. Many education models are suffering from the “mile wide, inch deep” syndrome. They teach a wide variety, but do not delve deep into any of them. Thus, not allowing a child to find their speciality or niche. If we all have God given talents, shouldn’t we be allowed to find our own speciality and interest and perfect it? I love your thought of allowing kids to direct their own curriculum. I think we would have a lot of happy, intelligent specialists coming out of our schools. Love your e-mails Dr. Rick!! Have a great day!!
Noelle, I love how you state that: “We’d have a lot of happy, intelligent specialists coming out of our schools.” what a great thing that would be! Thanks for your comment.
Hi Rick…I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate receiving your daily messages. Ever since I started using my IPhone for my alarm clock, checking for email is something I do from virtually the moment I wake up. If I see that your message has arrived, it’s something I read before even stepping out of bed to mentally prepare myself for the day. Thank you for being you!
Alice, thanks for sharing. What a wonderful idea: focusing on a positive idea before even stepping out of bed! Let’s all do that.
Hi Rick, What a refreshing way to look at education and it makes total sense. I am confident that more children would be involved in learning if they were given their choice to pursue what is important to them. Very well said.
Rick,
As a student myself I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve found that school no longer emphasizes experiencing and doing, but rather memorizing. The focus is on memorizing those vocab words or that formula instead of determining practical uses for those things. How does temporarily memorizing everything just to get a grade actually benefit me down the road?
I think that by stressing all of the technical aspects of education we are actually becoming dumber. We are being trained to be masters of regurgitation and just spit information back out instead of pursuing, creating, and truly learning and educating ourselves in what we’re passionate about. Keep up with this one.