Honour the Parents

All parents know that moment when they realize just how fragile and vulnerable their little new baby is. At that moment they want to do everything to protect the child. We spend an enormous amount of time and energy keeping our babies and children safe. But it is more than this. We also want them to be happy and to avoid the growing pains that we went through ourselves.

But we also have to acknowledge the reality - that, if we want them to thrive in this less than perfect world, we cannot completely shelter them. No matter how much we wish to. Our job as parents, and as teachers, and as role models, is to teach them how to deal with the real world. It is no good to prepare them for an utopia that not only doesn't, but also in all likelihood can't, exist.

No matter when a child is first introduced to the larger society - daycare, playgroup, kindergarten, camp - the parent brings one critically important factor to the experience: the knowledge of the child. No one knows a child better than his parent. To anyone working with that child, that knowledge is priceless. The first insight into the makeup of the child comes from the parent. I have always felt that the first parent-teacher interview of the year should involve the teacher asking questions and the parents revealing their intimate knowledge of the students. Any teacher would benefit from this viewpoint.

Parents are always partners with the other people who help their children learn and grow. Parents should be respected for this and their role acknowledged. Just like we no longer just take the pill that the doctor gives us and stay ignorant about our own health, neither should we completely turn control of our child's education over to teachers and administrators. Yes, they know what is best for the average child, but your child is never average. In fact, the average child does not exist. It is a manifestation created from large amounts of data to provide a program that will suit most children most of the time. I would argue that that is not good enough, nor is it the way to run an education system.

Given the training and experience that good teachers have, they should be able to individually work with the parents for each child. Whenever I carefully express this opinion in the presence of teachers they always reply that there are too many children to do this. And yet, each teacher at the elementary level is only responsible for 30 children. This does not mean that the teacher needs to teach each child individually but that they first learn each child from the parent and from their own testing methods. Then they group the children for each skill at the appropriate level. They supply the tasks and the tools and let the children work it out in their own best way at their own time. With properly expressed expectations and responsibilities, this is not chaos but engaged learning - the only kind of learning that is meaningful.

Ask yourself this question: what lessons do you remember from high school? Why do you remember them? How much do you now consider useless? The curriculum has been put together by professionals who realize all the skills and knowledge that children should have to succeed in the real world. The fact that some of that you found useless is not the fault of the curriculum itself but the manner of the delivery. An unengaged student may learn enough to pass the test but will not learn what they will need to go forward in life. Many of us had to relearn what we were taught because we did not learn it the first time.

I can hear some of you now saying, "But I never needed to know the date of Confederation! I never used trigonometry!" But that is not what you were supposed to learn. Canadian history is not about the date of Confederation but an appreciation of where our country came from and how that affects decisions that are made today. Without this awareness we have no hope of understanding the factors behind the issues of today's politics - Aboriginal claims, French rights, social services, health care. And trigonometry is not about triangles and angles but about precision and multi-step procedures that require intense focus and accuracy. These are valuable skills and are the underlying reason for the curriculum.

So I repeat in conclusion that students must be engaged to learn. Teachers must know their students in order to engage them. And parents are the best source for this information. If teachers wonder why so many parents are not involved in their children's education, the system does not respect the knowledge and value of the parents. Embrace any teacher who does. They are the ones who will best teach your precious child the skills needed to thrive in this world of opportunity. 

Education Through Art

Education Through Art

Education through Art, sounds impressive but what does it mean? What is Art? Painting, dancing, music. These are the Arts. But what is Art? Art is creativity, imagination, something from nothing, of no practical value - these are many other definitions. But more than all of these, Art is the passion. Art is the soul of the machine.

Long ago Western man decided to understand things by taking them apart. If you could grasp the function of each of the pieces then you would understand the whole. Body became separated from Mind. Physical from Mental. Reason from Faith. Practical from Artistic. For generations in sciences, philosophy, and education, we have analyzed and struggled to understand what makes us work, as individuals, as societies, and as a species. The problem lies in that only some parts are reducible to components. So we studied those parts, the body, the physical world, reasoning patterns, practical applications. And we learned how to pass these on to our children. Through formal education.

For the rest, the intangible, the soul, spirit, or whatever term you choose, we left that to the spiritual leaders, to traditions, to culture. And as a species we have been doing okay. Except recently. Now we have a breakdown of these support networks. Most families no longer have a spiritual counselor. Many have left traditions and family networks far behind in our global wanderings. So we look to our source of learning. We look to our scientists and our educators. And we ask them to take care of our children. To find the best practices for teaching. And they do their best. They use the system that they have always used. They emphasize the practical, the applicable, the concrete. Our children learn to use machines. They explore the world through their fingertips and electronic impulses which bring everything they need to them. The world is on the screen before them and they are all knowing.

No, they aren't. They don't know this information; they merely have access to it. In order to learn children must have the skills to learn. They must know how to think and use their minds in multitudinous ways. To see things from different perspectives. To imagine that which they cannot see or access. To stretch themselves. But teachers cannot help them to do that if they do not want to learn. We call them "reluctant learners" and they are a growing epidemic.

But all children learn all the time. They can't help it. It is basic instinct founded on survival skills. Knowledge keeps you alive and allows you to flourish. So what are they reluctant to learn? The very things that the scientists and educators keep telling them they need to know. They are reluctant because they are not engaged. There is no passion in their learning.

What is Art? Art is passion. Art is the realm of engagement. When you educate through art you inspire the spirit to crave the knowledge. A chemical reaction becomes a dance. A math theory becomes a thing of structure and beauty. A history lesson comes alive through the full experience of empathy. The children dream of gladiators. They wince at slavery as they read, write, draw, perform. They engage with the information and then they know it. Their passions are ignited and they are inspired and they learn.

Education Through Art.

I am a Gardener; I am an Artist

I am a Gardener.  Those who know me, know that I am not a gardener of gardens.  In fact, most plants seem to wither and die under my care.  No, I am a gardener of children.  (A Kinder Gartener!)  I take whatever young growth comes to the school and nurture it.  I give it the nutrients, water, soil, and sun that it needs to turn into whatever blossom it is going to be.  There is a video going around Facebook and YouTube about a young man named Andrew De Leon who is exactly the kind of flower which would prosper in our school garden.  He dresses like a Goth and claims to be a failure at everything and yet he has this amazing voice.  Until America's Got Talent, he was treated as a weed, someone who did not fit in the ordered, one-size-fits-all society of the masses.  Daily we see repressed, misfit children reveal hidden talents and amazing gifts.  So I am a gardener who sees a school not as a factory, which churns out productive citizens on a fixed and rigid system, but a garden where students can grow with the support and guidance to be whatever they can be.

I am an Artist.  Again, I can't draw at all, but I am a writer and I know the power of imagination.  We use the student's own imagination to gently allow them to explore, in all subjects, yes, even including mathematics, outside their box.  Out of their tiny, often fantasy, where they escape from the world,  comfort zone.  Breaking out of their shell and taking flight.  Yes, I am mixing metaphors and as an English teacher I should know better.  I do.  But the garden analogy can only be stretched so far.  Because the students may be nurtured by the concrete physical world.  We give them a safe launching pad with daily doses of mental and physical exercises.  But the final goal is to allow them to soar above the garden.  To use their imaginations, their self-confidence to pursue their passions, with firm roots in the here and now.  To dream is one thing; to realize that dream in this present world is another.  It is irresponsible not to teach them the tools they need to turn that dream into a viable, financially sound reality.  So we are a garden of flower birds. 

I am a Teacher.  I till the soil and watch them soar.  I couldn't imagine a better job.  This is my passion and I soar each day!

Food and Math

Anyone who has ever taken a math class from me knows that food will be mentioned.  I always say that this is because, even more than video games, food is central to any teen's life.  Actually it may be that I find food very helpful because it is universal.  So chocolate chip cookies teach basic arithmetic; pizza is a natural for fractions; and, fruit salad was meant for algebra.  I have also noticed that the higher the math skills the less fun the food becomes.  Am I subconsciously trying to get the kids to eat properly?  Not sure about that one.  Maybe I won't spend time here exploring my subconscious.  That could be rather scary!

So then I was thinking about how to use food to explain common denominators for fractions.  What about a camping trip?  Or just your weekly shopping list?  Maybe we'll have spaghetti one night, shepherd's pie another, chicken cacciatore on Wednesday, fish next, and pizza on Friday.  So how does one make the list?  We take the ingredients and check the supplies.  But we combine the fact that Monday and Tuesday's dinners both need ground beef.  We reduce the recipes to the common ingredients.  You have to break down the big numbers until you get the common parts.  Break 1/3 into 2/6 or 4/12 (always smaller units) until you get to a unit that can work with 3/4, or 6/8 or 9/12.  And so we have a common denominator.

But then it struck me!  I am not only finding a common denominator but also showing that you need to put like ingredients together.  Ground beef from two dinners, tomato sauce from three, etc.  So I am adding like terms.  Algebra here we come!  Math is so great because it is so simple!  And yet can be made so beautifully complex!

My other passion is language where complexity is found in the innuendos and subtle flavours of words and their juxtapositions.  Math is so magnificent in its simplicity and clarity.  There are such strict rules and no exceptions.  I find it very amusing that students think speaking and texting are so simple and math is so hard.  The opposite is true.  We all know the messes that can occur with a simple misunderstanding of the words on a message or the tone of a note.  In math there can be no misunderstanding.  What you see is what you get.  There are no interpretations, no miscommunications.  2 + 2 is always 4, regardless of your mood, the weather, how much sleep you got, and whether the source is a friend or foe.  Math is pure and consistent in a world constantly changing.  It can explore the universe and still remain the same.  Anyone can learn it because, unlike our spoken language, it is a universal language.  It is based on some very clearly laid out principles and then everything is derived from that.

So back to food.  Math should not be taught as a series of recipes to be memorized but as a list of ingredients which can be combined in certain ways to produce something so much more.  Just as understanding the properties of flour and water can produce bread, pizza dough, gravy or glue, so understanding the basics of math can lead to algebra, functions, and calculus.  The more you cook, the better you become.  The more you play with math, the easier it is.  So join me sometime in the kitchen and we will learn some algebra.

Long live chocolate chip cookies!