“What does it mean to be educated? In the school where I taught, it meant pouring facts into a child’s head so the child could take a test and move on to more facts. It was focused upon measurable quantities of information and retention of information. This segmenting of education, the idea that education can be broken down and compartmentalized, is the prevailing notion. Children are considered buckets to be filled. Education [to this mindset] is merely the imparting of certain facts and skills over time.”
Elizabeth Foss, Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home
It’s hard to put this book down, but I did put it down near the beginning when I read this passage. I got to thinking about the Monday Morning Memo’s call for great teachers and about what it meant to be a great teacher. I got to thinking about children as buckets versus children as sponges versus children as people. I got to thinking about my reasons for various parental philosophies (education included) and how all of this makes my heart beat faster, my blood flow hotter, my brain think louder.
