As I look out at the snow-covered schoolyard, trying to be positive, looking for lessons and encouragement, I realize that snow in April is a sign of each season’s uniqueness. Just as no day is exactly like any other, no child is exactly like anyone else. One year’s April brings warm, sunny play-outside days and another brings freezing rain and snow.
One child learns to read when you are not even looking, another defies all your efforts to figure out what is going on with her until that magic day that after much agony, you discover the key that opens her eyes. For this reason, teaching will always be more art than science. Certain data can inform teaching, but data alone does not teach children how to read, write or think. Each child has a unique makeup that, in my opinion, is God-given and distinct from every other human. Standardized anything in education will only serve to destroy beautiful uniqueness, never create a standard human. Would we want a standard human, anyway? We are here to be different, otherwise, we are redundant. My strongest hope is that the government will stop forcing all teachers and students into the same mold and allow each child to develop to their unique and full potential by allowing schools to recognize each child’s beauty and distinctive timetable, letting teachers have freedom to teach and test according to the needs of the humans in front of them.
makingthinkinglearning 