What can we teach a child that will be of lasting value?
A large number of educators around the world are re-thinking what children learn in school every day. Whilst there is much that is good in the current system – including dedicated teachers and innovative teaching initiatives – several individuals and groups are asking deeper questions about the fundamentals of education and considering a complete overhaul of school and learning as we know it.
Since education should prepare children for life, we need to ask what skills and experiences will help a child to live successfully in today’s complex world. So it’s worth stopping to consider: what are our priorities?
Maybe... asking a child to memorise Pythagoras’ theorem is less important than to teach him to think for himself; maybe trying to make a child get better at standardized tests is less important than helping her to find work that she enjoys and can eventually make a living from; maybe teaching a child to aim to be “at the top” is less important than showing him how to live as part of a community and contribute to it.
Perhaps... as adults we should admit that growing up doesn't mean you know all the answers. Perhaps we should teach young people that it's important to pause, reflect and question; that just because things have always been done a certain way, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is the only way; perhaps we can show them that though there is much strife and pain in the world, there is also love and kindness and laughter. Perhaps we can show them that we trust and believe in them; that they have potential, and that their voice can make a meaningful difference.
Indeed, the idea of a children contributing to decisions about what and how they learn is now a recurring theme in many of the current discussions about education. A number of democratic schools have now been established around the world, the most remarkable of them being a revolutionary called Summerhill.
Summerhill, a school that remains open today in Leiston, England, was founded in 1921 by A.S. Neill, the son of two school teachers. Neill had a firm belief in the fundamental “goodness of the child”. At Summerhill, decisions about the laws by which the school is governed are made at the weekly meeting, in which everyone (staff and students included) has one vote. Children have the freedom to do as they please as long as they don’t impinge upon the freedom of others. This means that they do not have to go to any lessons, but if they do, they are not to disrupt the learning of others. Although this may sound like a completely foreign concept to anyone who attended a mainstream school, it is worth noting that Summerhill pupils have gone on to work in virtually every known professional field including art, medicine, law, education, science and music.* Even more importantly, Neill “does not try to educate children to fit well into the existing order, but endeavors to rear children who will become happy human beings, men and women whose values are not to have much, not to use much, but to be much.”**
If we are to take just one powerful idea from Summerhill, perhaps this is what it should be: to be “happy human beings”; “not to have much, not to use much, but to be much”. Perhaps if this is what young people today were to learn, then school and indeed the world would be a very different place.
*Summerhill School FAQs
** Foreword, “Summerhill: A radical approach to child rearing”
Note: For more on democratic schools around the world, visit this link.
A large number of educators around the world are re-thinking what children learn in school every day. Whilst there is much that is good in the current system – including dedicated teachers and innovative teaching initiatives – several individuals and groups are asking deeper questions about the fundamentals of education and considering a complete overhaul of school and learning as we know it.
Since education should prepare children for life, we need to ask what skills and experiences will help a child to live successfully in today’s complex world. So it’s worth stopping to consider: what are our priorities?
Maybe... asking a child to memorise Pythagoras’ theorem is less important than to teach him to think for himself; maybe trying to make a child get better at standardized tests is less important than helping her to find work that she enjoys and can eventually make a living from; maybe teaching a child to aim to be “at the top” is less important than showing him how to live as part of a community and contribute to it.
Perhaps... as adults we should admit that growing up doesn't mean you know all the answers. Perhaps we should teach young people that it's important to pause, reflect and question; that just because things have always been done a certain way, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is the only way; perhaps we can show them that though there is much strife and pain in the world, there is also love and kindness and laughter. Perhaps we can show them that we trust and believe in them; that they have potential, and that their voice can make a meaningful difference.
Indeed, the idea of a children contributing to decisions about what and how they learn is now a recurring theme in many of the current discussions about education. A number of democratic schools have now been established around the world, the most remarkable of them being a revolutionary called Summerhill.
Summerhill, a school that remains open today in Leiston, England, was founded in 1921 by A.S. Neill, the son of two school teachers. Neill had a firm belief in the fundamental “goodness of the child”. At Summerhill, decisions about the laws by which the school is governed are made at the weekly meeting, in which everyone (staff and students included) has one vote. Children have the freedom to do as they please as long as they don’t impinge upon the freedom of others. This means that they do not have to go to any lessons, but if they do, they are not to disrupt the learning of others. Although this may sound like a completely foreign concept to anyone who attended a mainstream school, it is worth noting that Summerhill pupils have gone on to work in virtually every known professional field including art, medicine, law, education, science and music.* Even more importantly, Neill “does not try to educate children to fit well into the existing order, but endeavors to rear children who will become happy human beings, men and women whose values are not to have much, not to use much, but to be much.”**
If we are to take just one powerful idea from Summerhill, perhaps this is what it should be: to be “happy human beings”; “not to have much, not to use much, but to be much”. Perhaps if this is what young people today were to learn, then school and indeed the world would be a very different place.
*Summerhill School FAQs
** Foreword, “Summerhill: A radical approach to child rearing”
Note: For more on democratic schools around the world, visit this link.