This morning in the car I was having a conversation with my three and a half year old daughter in which she said she was learning something. I promptly asked her if she liked learning, and she enthusiastically replied, "Yeah! I love learning; it's my favorite." As a teacher, I was very proud to hear this from her, but then I got to thinking about some of the students that have passed through my classroom and the ones I will be teaching this year and wondering how few of them would have replied in the positive with the same enthusiasm as my daughter. I'm guessing not too many of my secondary students!
Where have we gone wrong as a society and a system that we have taken this innate curiosity and love of learning and quashed it into a chore or something that our students resent? We are born with a natural desire to understand and learn, especially for those of us subscribing to the Piaget/Vygotsky Constuctivist ideals; what a shame that it is the exception among many secondary students to observe. It's not hard to point out some reasons for this (broken grading systems and policies, poor instructional strategies, sit-and-get learning, lack of choices, high-stakes testing, etc.).
But, what are we doing about it? We are very quick as schools to investigate the magic pill that will increase student achievement and test results because of poor performance by focusing on standards and teaching to tests and changing this and that in our system, etc. etc. etc. But I have never heard in all of my PD hours a mention of restoring this innate love of learning that I have witnessed in my own (and others') three year old child.
As the new school year rolls out, why don't we take a moment (or more) to forgo state standards (gasp!) and teach something that your students might find interesting or that may remind them of how enjoyable they once found learning? Not school, but LEARNING! Maybe you could be the spark that reignites this passion in one of your students!
