Welcome!
Today’s Blog is about Race To Nowhere (http://www.racetonowhere.com/.) If you haven’t seen the film – a quick synopsis: A one size fits all approach to education focused on testing and over achievement is a recipe for depression, stress and burnout. The student who best sums up his experience states he feels like he is in a “race to nowhere.” It is a powerful and very sad movie, yet the fact that it was made and is a springboard for so many conversations around the country is incredibly hopeful.
Rather than recapping the critique of testing/rote learning/over achieving/more, faster, better, I’ll stay focused on my small part of the solution. By doing my grappling, thinking and rethinking, alchemizing many related ideas about what I have come to believe is important in schooling, I am in a small way living out what is missing from the school factory- time to ponder.
How do classroom teachers make time for thinking? Is this homework? Or can it be an active ritualized, accepted part of every school week? How about THINKING THURSDAYS!
On Thursdays every student in every subject area across every grade level would be invited to take a deeper look at the material. This would be a “safe” day. There would be no wrong answers, no wrong ideas, and no censorship. The teacher would truly be the “guide on the side.”
Teachers need to be comfortable with NOT being the experts. They need to be comfortable with the imaginations and tangents of students. They need to be learners and listeners, not just correctors. What are the boundaries of the conversation? How much time is useful?
Teachers will use trial and error to figure this out. Is once a month enough? Or is every Thursday a THINKING THURSDAY.
Set the tone. Give permission. Leave the judge at the door. Let the students explore their own minds.
Thanks for reading (more soon) -L
