Put yourself in the shoes of the student...what do you see? feel? hear? believe?
Hmmm...Adults who are supposed to care about me but talk about each other? If I am supposed to be learning from the adults in my life...do I really want to be like them or do I learn from their behavior and grow in spite of them? Why do adults say one thing then do another? If I am learning how to learn what lessons am I learning from them? Oh no those feelings of confliction return.
This time of year the lists make the rounds:
Things Teachers want Parents to know
Things Parents want Teachers to know
Things Schools want Parents to know
So whether your child is off to pre-K or high school...look at your neighborhood and community, what can you learn? Do you perpetuate us versus them or are you one part of the unity in your community?
Before stereotyping or putting all people under one label, learn your role in the process. Do you know your local school board member, superintendent, or area representative? Do you know the learners who wait for the school buses on the corners of your neighborhood? Do you invest any time in your local schools? Is there a collaboration with the senior citizens in the community? What has the higher population in your area, youth detention or the public school system? How much is spent on youth detention vice public schools in your area? Where are your tax dollars really going?
OK jumping off the soapbox...just one of those things that sticks in my craw regardless of the solutions available. So students...do your thing and in the circle of life and learning be a part of the change you want to see. Thanks for the things you are doing for the greater good from discovering cures for diseases to connecting with global learners.
TEDxTeen
DoSomething
What Kids Can Do
Google Students
Kids are Heroes
Young Adult Library Services Association
Thoughts for the learning days of life:
- Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, this will mean all your life. Henry L. Doherty
- The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. Robert M. Hutchins
- It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. Jacob Bronowski
- Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did. Sarah Caldwell
- Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Douglas Adams
- Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Mahatma Gandhi
- There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience. Archibald MacLeish
- Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century. S. J. Perelman
- Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. Isaac Asimov
- Learning is about more than simply acquiring new knowledge and insights; it is also crucial to unlearn old knowledge that has outlived its relevance. Thus, forgetting is probably at least as important as learning. Gary Ryan Blair
