Change right now is inevitable…will it be the right kind of change?
Schools are going to be different this year. But have you thought about the pitfalls of our educational system that really need to change? I’m not talking about how many kids are in a class or if they all have a mask on.
I’m talking about real change…change of content, standards, expectations, and pedagogy.
Let me share with you a couple stories…
There is a boy I know in 3rd grade. He came home in tears because his teacher told him how important this 3rd grade test is. He was told that if he didn’t pass the test, he wouldn’t go on to 4th grade. He had a complete melt-down over this.
A different 3rd grade boy who has a habit of twirling his hair when he’s feeling anxious, came home from school with a chunk of hair missing. He said that he was so nervous because he just found out they would have to take this REALLY important test and he was worried that he wouldn’t pass.
A 2nd grader never wants to go to school on Fridays. This child shares with her parents that she doesn’t understand why her teacher calls Friday, FriYay…all they do is take tests the entire day. She told her mom, “I hate Fridays”.
Are you ready for this story…
A young man in his freshman year of college considers ending his life…thankfully he did not. He says, it’s all just too hard! There is so much stress and I can’t handle it. This is a kid that is smart, does not struggle academically, and has a good head on his shoulder.
In the last 2 decades our education system has taken a turn. This turn has been good and bad. We’ve gone from one spectrum to the other on the learning pendulum. This change, I believe, began with The No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. It gave educators nationwide focus and accountability. It gave focus to our teaching. However, the race for school districts to be rated the best, the pressure put on teachers for their own evaluations, and the pressure that state mandated testing has put on our students has caused a pandemic of its own. Anxiety!
Anxiety is fear of the future.
We can use this uncertain time for school planning to BE THEIR DIFFERENCE by shifting the paradigm in education.
A paradigm shift is defined as “an important change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way.”
Here is what I’ve come up with…
Education needs to shift the paradigm from Academic Rigor to Developmental Growth! This needs to happen in the early years of education. Primary teachers…are you up the task?
Academic Rigor = learn it and move on
Students that enter kindergarten with a natural curiosity for everything are spoon fed information, regurgitate the information, and continue on to the next. This process for Academic Rigor has created:
- lack of developmental skills
- anxiety
- no time to develop a love for learning
Developmental Growth = learning the social, emotional, thinking and communication skills needed for academic achievement and success
When a child enters their school years, they need to have the opportunity to grow developmentally. The process for Developmental Growth will do the following:
- foster cognitive development
- develop active learners
- promote executive function skills
- allow curiosity to engage learning
- create a love for learning
This is the perfect time to shift the paradigm. Education is being reimagined by our entire nation. We have the opportunity to reflect on what is truly best for kids and take action. It’s time to prioritize and really think about what will get our students prepared for the life that they will be living.
How can we develop our youth to be confident, smart, self-sufficient, and productive human beings? What can our educators do to achieve this goal?
Academic rigor and high test scores is not the answerl. The “race” to academic achievement (especially in the early years) is stunting the growth for kids to develop a love for learning, a sense of confidence and purpose, and achievement in the process of learning rather than the end result.
Yes, goal setting and achieving is necessary and good!
Yes, we want our kids to achieve their goals!
Yes, we need to teach them to value the process of getting to the end result!
When we focus on developmental growth, the achievement will come!
We can foster each student’s developmental growth by intentionally planning for and implementing the following in our regular elementary classrooms:
- Growth Mindset
- Executive Function Skills
- Foundational Literacy Skill
- Motor Skills
- Sensory Integration
- Play-Based Learning
- Engaging Educational Pedagogy
- Inquiry Based Learning.
Focusing on these areas in your elementary classrooms will equip your students to be mentally and emotionally prepared, leading to academic achievement as an end result. You will learn that providing the proper tools for learning will foster a love, confidence, and drive for our students to really work to their highest potential.
Forget the academic rigor during the primary years of elementary school, let’s develop great successful humans!
Primary Teachers…are you ready to shift the paradigm and become the rescuer? Many of you already understand and believe this and are just waiting for permission to take off with it!
Administrators and Educational Leaders? Are you ready to allow your elementary teachers to make this paradigm shift for our kids?
Teachers and Parents everywhere are anxiously waiting to hear if school will resume in the fall.
Parents of Kindergarteners are wondering how their very active, busy body child, will learn the foundations with the possibility of not meeting their teacher and classmates face to face.
Seniors are wondering if they will get to have a “normal” senior year.
Students are craving interaction with their peers and progressing to the next grade.
And teachers… Oh, my dear fellow teachers, they are looking through a window into the unknown. How do they plan? What changes are going to be made? How will they do it all?
Can we consider using our face to face time in our elementary classrooms for our student’s developmental growth?
You can find a planning sheet for reinventing schools on my previous blog post called Reinventing Schools: How Systematic Change can Better our Schools. You can also download a checklist for teaching Developmental Growth on my freebies page.
I’d love to hear how you are being an agent of change for our students. Comment below to share ideas of what you are planning to do for student developmental growth. I’d also love to know what you want to know more about!
Enjoy Being Their Difference,
Wow! I love this article. Unfortunately it is very a very accurate description of our day to day routine in school. I hear administrators say, “We have to keep up with other countries”. “we are falling behind academically and as a society”. So the answer-implement a rigorous and intense curriculum. However, this has not solved any problems because the curriculum is way above the students developmental milestones. For example, in October for Kindergarten students, they are required to write a paragraph about the main idea of a story-what’s wrong with that picture….. um everything. They should be learning letters and sounds as well as playing. Learning through play is the best way to teach a child, but the district has taken a lot of play time away and supplemented it with more curriculum.
I taught Kindergarten for many years! I want to make a difference in education. Stay tuned as my first book comes out in March…it’s called SLOW DOWN! Children are Learning! This is exactly what it is about!