Give Childhood Back to Children

 

As a parent, I know I can make a huge impact on my children's life . .  HUGE!  And sometimes I feel obsessed with being a great parent worrying if I am doing the right thing.  I think we all do.  That obsession definitely transfer to my teaching philosophy.   First of all, I feel that being a parent I am more empathetic towards students.  I mean, when I see a student struggling or any situation, I try to deal with it as if, ‘what if this was my child?’   These students are someone else children. 

After reading the article, I sometimes question the impact I make.  I know I am and in a positive way, but as a high school teacher . . . is it too late?  I have taught 4th through 12th grade and I see the passion in students to learn slowly disappear, particularly in middle school.  The sixth graders come to school with such intense passion and excitement to learn and I noticed about mid way through 7th grade, it was almost completely gone.  Is it hormones, the drastic change in learning environment from a more nurturing to independent classroom,is it our society, and has it always been that way?

I know play is important and work ethics are too,  it is just finding that balance.  And there is that question of, if they don’t take those extra classes, will they not be able to compete with the other students?   One teacher I know preaches, if you do not take calculus in high school, don’t bother going into engineering.  All that makes me think, is that my brother didn’t take calculus in high school or collage for that matter and is one of the top mechanical designers at Kodak.  Hmmm . . .

All this thoughts always leads me back to, what is really important and what is success?  Check out this article and ask yourself, do you have enough play in your life?  Do your kids?  Students?  ~Cornell

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Give childhood back to children: if we want our offspring to have happy, productive and moral lives, we must allow more time for play, not less

Because students spend nearly all of their time studying, they have little opportunity to be creative or discover their own passions

   by Peter Gray, Ph.D. is a research professor at Boston College, and author of Free to Learn and Psychology - Sunday 12 January 2014

I’m a research bio-psychologist with a PhD, so I’ve done lots of school. I’m a pretty good problem-solver, in my work and in the rest of my life, but that has little to do with the schooling I’ve had. I studied algebra, trig, calculus and various other maths in school, but I can’t recall ever facing a problem – even in my scientific research – that required those skills. What maths I’ve used was highly specialised and, as with most scientists, I learnt it on the job.

The real problems I’ve faced in life include . . . <<  Read More  >>>