Helping them learn and discover their unique tie to that amazing part of themselves that no one can duplicate into a carbon copy of standards opens a future full of discovery and success. Every student's mind is individual and precious, especially in those learning years when every bit of information spawns amazing avenues of thoughts we can never predict. Emphasizing the possibility, not the standard, should be our focus. Expecting teachers to teach our children rather than feed them facts, and giving these facilitators of information the resources to help our children reach for whatever lies within them seems a much surer path to meeting minimum standards of achievement. In an article in The Roanoke Times recently, the writer put in print something very close to my heart as he wrote about two Roanoke schools and their response to improving school scores on the SOLs.
Teachers focus on the children's academic strengths instead of their weaknesses.
I remember reading the article and being dumbfounded at the implication that this move was an innovative approach. Yep, that's pretty much a given. In those circumstances, any failure turns from a negative loss into an opportunity for learning. One teacher to whom I will always give thanks showed me, in the midst of a disappointment, that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes IF we're willing to learn. That willingness, a desire and strength to seek out and explore what we don't know, comes from feeling secure in our surroundings.