It’s all about attitude. The way a teacher greets her students when they walk in the classroom. The way she responds to their questions. The way she interacts with them both in a learning and social setting.
When a student says that it isn’t possible to observe this exact moment, arguing that since the light has to travel to the sensors in the eye, impulses in the nerves have to travel to the brain. It takes a little, little time for this to happen. Hence, we cannot observe this exact moment, because when we become aware of it, it’ll already have passed.
What an invite to discuss interesting aspects of physics, biology, chemistry, and philosophy!
But when the response from the teacher is a sigh, a roll of the eyes, saying that the student’s reasoning isn’t worth considering at all, the most likely outcome is a student that will hesitate to interact the next time around.
Humans have a natural curiosity. We are creative creatures. But it’s possible to quench that curiosity. It’s all too easy to destruct that creativity. School is immensely important when it comes to nurturing these traits or simply crushing them.
Stressed out teachers blame the curriculum, saying that they have to stick to the schedule. There can be no deviations from the planned lessons. We have created a system that wants easy quantifiable parameters. How else are we going to know how much the kids have learned?
Teachers that bring all of their minds and hearts to the classroom are way too few. We meet numerous teachers throughout our life. The ones that we remember are the ones that stood for something more. That dared to venture outside the curriculum and see each student. It’s a daunting task, but the reward is immense.
So we continue educating cogs that fit the system. But cogs have no innovative power. They simply fit in and make the machinery run smoothly.
When are we going to realize that we need to start educating innovators?
Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash
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