Monday, November 25, 2019

Teaching Kids or Coaching Kids

It was writing time or more to say a struggle time with my son to make him a better writer. His 5th grade teacher gave him an assignment to write about something of his interest using punctuation. My sons with his turbulent thoughts and racing mind raked the sentence without proper punctuation and just want  to get out of the writing captivity.  I wonder why the parents have to struggle with kids to educate the kids especially writing or solving problem while the kids are becoming rebellious to it. Is the system to be blamed or ourselves. Probably nothing is working for us as parents and he is diagnosed with ADHD. What is the utility value of forcing a child who is not interested in writing with a kid of average intelligence. The compass of internal motivation or inherent thrist is always the predictor of being good at anything. The school system which mass manufacture students and torture in the name of creating a career  for the kid is partly to blame for such a disaster and merciless crushing of the young soul. Education is important  but how to pursue it especially in this age of complex layers of knowledge and internet is a different challenge than 19th century education system. This complex problem requires different customized approach catered to the need and ability of the children. There are children who are going to be brilliant and excel academically so those children has to be nurtured properly and differently since they are the jewels and probably the people who will shape the society in STEM or political endevour. The other kids who are average but have different interest and intuition should be directed towards their intuition and capability and make the process of education as enjoyable as possible  with little instructions from the teacher. The process of discovery is what kindles a human being in the pursuit of knowledge and happiness.
How many of us in our career actually write at length and produce useful content for others to read and comprehend. Is it not our education system should to kindle the curiosity in children and encourage the process of self discovery about seeking the knowledge out of pleasure rather out of career captivity. This question has been asked countless times by people of various capacities but there is no proper political will or a solution in sight. This torture of bending the kids to assimilate them into this education system is the approach of showing light to the blind man. Rather blind man should be treated as a blind man and requires different set of approaches to develop skills that he is capable of. Every human being will contribute to the welfare of the society in any form. Agreed there  are some basic which every kid has to learn like number sense, basic vocabulary and critical reasoning which are indispensable skills and important to any endeavor the kids under take.
The root of all evil is one size fits all.  how do we teach these skills in a less painful way.
Every kids learn at their own pace. Every kid will reach their finish line but at their pace and will.
As we parents compare ourselves with other family on money, fame and wealth and not surprisingly we pass such dubious quality to our children without much effort. Kids learn by seeing and doing but not by saying. We brought them into this world in the process of being happy but we parent have a responsibility to protect our kids from this on slaught of educational system.