“The older I get the more I realize that the only thing a
teacher has to go on is the rare spark in a child's eyes.”
~ The Rector of Justin, Louis Auchincloss
I was inspired last week after seeing how students at one of the schools I work with had, as principal Barbara Slatin likes to say, “found their light bulbs.” These students working on projects of deep personal interest in groups, pairs, or alone depending on what worked best for them studying topics they choose. The children were literally bursting with excitement and pride as they explained their discoveries and the importance of the work they were doing. One pair of students presented their material so well. you forgot you were listening to primary school students. You were simply listening to experienced experts, who in this case happened to be ten years old.
As I was leaving the building. I stopped to use the restroom and saw this inspirational teacher. I shared with her how wonderful it was to see her guide students in doing work they cared about so much. She looked sullen and confided, "You know come next month, this goes out the window and all we'll be able to do for the rest of the year is worksheets and test prep.” She said, “It's so depressing when you know you can help kids get excited about learning, but you're forced to put that aside to teach to the test. You see the excitement and love of learning drain right from them and right from me." "Today was wonderful," she said, "but it just makes me more depressed when I think about what I'm going to have to do to these kids and I don't know how much longer I can do this for a living."
Ugh, my heart sank. Are we going to lose another excellent, passion-driven teacher to a compulsory system of education that as Seth Godin so aptly expresses, “only values compliance not initiative, because, of course, that’s what’s easiest to measure.”
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