Learning

The public school has a huge responsibility that our education system does not take proper care of.

First of all, everyone working within the school system must know what it means to learn.

Simply put, it means that you can do something after the learning that you could not do before the learning.

It is easy to study and memorize something written in schoolbooks, but to really do what is described is totally different.

It can be likened with the difference between you reading and understanding the theory about how to shoe a horse, and really showing that you have learned this by simply shoe a horse….

The school is built and arranged for the school, not for the student, therefore the school kills the student’s creativity and eagerness to learn as soon as a child start school.

During all their early years, children learned through their built-in abilities to learn, their creativity and eagerness to learn, without anybody telling them that they had to learn, it happened automatically.

Kids therefore, also have an ability to ask questions about everything, they do not need to be told to ask when something is not clear.

Traditional Teaching

How school sees kids

How kids see school

In the school, kids meet every day filled with directions, right and wrong, described in schoolbooks and emphasized by teachers.
Children can no longer learn the way that feels natural to them, they are forced into a system which they, quite correct, experience as forced.

Forced labour was used as punishment for criminals, and is not something sought after; therefore children may be absent from school. Instead of adapting the school to the students, we punish children for absence from a place that feels like a concentration camp.

This is the school-day for many kids

Education through public school. as it has functioned, and still do, is not a guarantee for success in life. Rather it is a hindrance for self-development and learning.

Benjamin Franklin left school when he was 10 years old and ended up as the founding father of USA.

Amancio Ortega, one of the world’s richest men, left scool when he was 13 years old.

These are just two examples, showing that success does not depend on public schools. There are numerous other examples.

The students who succeed in life do not succeed because of the public school but despite it.
Kids must be seen as what they are, they are small people with an enormous eagerness to learn.

They are not criminal individuals who need to be controlled and put on “straight-jackets” to keep them from doing “bad” things. In the school there are many “bad” things, like not sitting still and listening to the teacher, or question what the school system has decided, or the “truths” the teacher, or the schoolbook tell, among countless others.

Kids are forced to acquire knowledge at certain times, and under certain circumstances, as the school decides. The kids’ readiness to receive information is not taken into account, all students MUST be ready to receive information when it is given.

To learn under stress is not natural neither for adults nor kids. Many kids react defensively against this authoritarian treatment. Be aware that kids learn from, and react on, their surroundings.

As mentioned, the school is arranged the way the authorities have decided, not according to the kids, and therefore produce losers.
It is then left to the teachers, or other school personnel, to deal with these “losers” who, very often, may be very aggressive.
Not because they are criminals, they just express their frustration and try to protect themselves, in whatever way.

Teaching Arranged for Kids

To prepare the conditions so that kids may continue to use their creative abilities and their eagerness to learn, the old, traditional school-system must be abolished.

To make learning meaningful, the system must be changed to center around the students and their natural abilities.

• Abolish rigid lists of schoolbooks—use libraries and real-world tasks instead.
• Base learning on curriculum goals, not forced lessons.
• Let students find their own methods and sources for solving problems.
• Teachers act as assistants, not authorities.
• Time and schedules should adapt to the student, not the school-bell.

Groups of 3–4 students can work on projects and report progress daily. Assessment is based on what they can *do* after the learning, not memorization.

The students may not come to a teacher to ask for solution to a problem, instead they may approach a teacher with suggestions of solutions to problems.

Where the students pick up information to finish the projects is not important, when given free hands they will find the necessary information.

Many schools, and teachers, will not be able to adjust from a strictly regulated time-scheduled plan to a more flexible one.

The results may surprise many adults, as I experienced, by trying out a teaching system like this. Proofs of reaching the goals may be very different and contain details we absolutely could not imagine.

Experiences

A test I did at a secondary school, gave astonishing results.

• All students reached or exceeded curriculum goals.
• Some exceeded secondary school standards and approached engineering-level results.
• Previously disinterested students engaged eagerly, even during holidays.
• No behavioral issues, students were treated with respect and responded positively.

I had to leave the school after the one year of test and move abroad due to family issues. I do not think my work was followed up, probably the teaching went back to the old ways again.

I encourage everyone involved in the school system to look at this way of teaching, it will give a totally different feeling of achievement, and satisfaction for both teachers and students.

It is not easy to arrange all this, it will require a lot of extra work and may take quite a lot of time to develop.

Students who have experienced the traditional forced way of teaching, may also have difficulties adjusting to the flexible system.
They may feel at loss as they no longer have the school books to show the expected results, among others, and must rediscover their original abilities of creativity and learning eagerness.

In Conclusion

Children live in the present. To make learning effective, the present must be meaningful and engaging.

“Would adults accept a job that forces them to do what they don’t enjoy, on someone else’s schedule, with the promise of possible rewards in 10–20 years?”

Current school systems often operate on that premise, and it’s no wonder children resist it.

It’s time to rethink education from the ground up. It must respect children’s natural curiosity, provide freedom to explore, and support rather than control them.