Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/the-opportunity-that-must-not-be-squandered/5026208/
When schools began to consider how to open after emergency closures due to the pandemic, I remember thinking, “Ah, here is an opportunity to make some real changes in how we educate our children!”
Nothing could stay the same, I figured, so why not step back and take a new look at old assumptions about teaching and learning? I have always valued an opportunity I had to do just that in 1990, when I started teaching a group of young 5-year-olds in a new program at my school. Given carte blanche to do what I felt was right for the children (as long as they were “ready” for Kindergarten the next year,) I took a step back from all I had been told by others and assumed to be true, and re-examined every assumption. Why did we walk in a straight line to P.E. across campus? Why did Kindergarten require a letter of the week? Why were “subjects” separated from each other, even in early childhood? Why could children not copy from each other? And so on. From there, I started to put together a program that put children at the center of teaching and learning. Coincidentally (or maybe providentially) I encountered ...