Do We Educate for Life?
Common Core Standards…our latest approach in public education to get everyone on the same page. These Common Core standards do sound better. They contain language that promotes and encourages much needed modeling, creative thinking, and problem solving. Yet, they are still academic standards, so should we really pay them that much attention?
I raise my hand and ask: how will the Common Core Standards help children to learn how to learn for themselves, to be persistent, to be creative thinkers, to be aware of their surroundings, their unique gifts and purposes, and their roles in situations and life? How are schools doing this, or not doing this, and will it be done better with this new set of standards?
Are we giving our children, the future, what is really needed, or all that is really needed, if we are not intentionally and actively nurturing these “non-academic” purposes of education?
Let’s see children being educated for life, who are gaining understandings of themselves, who can solve problems, and who have an awareness and appreciation of others. Let’s strive to develop children, people, who use their many roles and gifts in the community for good, and let’s ask if the latest list of standards is leading us in that direction, and if any list can.
Here are some schooling approaches that disrupt our thoughts on the use of Common Core Standards, or any list of academic standards, as the default driving force for improving teaching and learning. May I suggest that what may be needed is not a better list but rather a paradigm shift of how and why we “educate” children, a paradigm that focus more on the whole child and on whole life.
