Complicit in the atrophy of our children's learning spirit

Robert Fried says…

We [parents] become so confused, so conflicted, so fearful that unless we keep our children’s minds “on task,” aiming for the honor roll, the advanced placement courses, the grade-point average of life, we will damage their chances to access the next set of elite learning venues, be they the elementary school’s gifted-and-talented program, the high school’s honors classes, an Ivy League college, or a top-ranked graduate program. Such pressures can easily thwart our desire to see the children in our lives as happy, curious, confident, and enthusiastic learners. We see the contrast between how our children respond to the things they love to learn and how they resist or rebel against the boredom and inanity of much of their schoolwork. But we bite our tongues and (still confused) become complicit in the atrophy of our children’s learning spirit in furtherance of their academic careers. [The Game of School, pp. 80–81]

Comments

[teacherninja]

1.

Thanks for posting these!

[Mark]

2.

Amen.

[Nathan Rinne]

3.

True.

And yet:

http://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/2009/02/student_expectations.html

-Nathan

[Louise Maine]

4.

Thank you for this. When school is not business as usual, parents become unhinged at little things and can't help but think they transfer much to their children. What Fried says may be true, but some of the parents do not appear to be embracing change either. It does not look like the learning in another class and so there is doubt.

[Nathan]

5.

This too, for balance's sake:

http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2009/02/the_free_arts_a.php