What Does it Mean, ‘To Educate’?

Rebecca Zeines
Jul 21, 2017 · 3 min read

Really, I’m curious.

I’m always wondering about this idea, because I often call myself an educator.

I mean, I work with children and am titled “teacher” in that context. A title that also comes with an expected amount of respect from the kids I’m working with. They’re reminded to add “Miss” before my name when talking to me.

Is educating children forcing them to practice forms of politeness and respect that they don’t fully grasp yet?

Or, when they’re older and go to school, is educating children putting them in a space where they’re expected to be physically capable of sitting calmly for hours on end, while being ‘taught’ things that they aren’t really interested in?

Is education that thing where kids learn about social norms, societal structures, and how to think about the world around them?

Not to me.

Education is about an individual’s take on learning and personal growth. It isn’t anything that other people have put on them without their consent.

I believe that education is something that happens despite all of the above. That all of those things are an impediment in one’s education.

I don’t force kids to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ — or at least, I try not to. It feels unnatural to me, because it means that they’re not learning why these words hold a special meaning when asking for/receiving something. They’re just repeating a norm — blindly.

Education to me isn’t about forcing kids into a standard just ‘because that’s how the world works.’

Education is about freeing the kids from those norms and helping them see which ones actually make sense and hold value to them.

But it’s also about acknowledging how a lot of the nonsensical rules and norms in the world exist within the context of a society they might want to exist in. And education is about helping the kids navigate this reality and decide for themselves what they’re ready to face.

Education is about exploring the world around, from technical learning, such as things taught in school — if it’s relevant to the kid — to spontaneous discovery and pushing the bounds of normalcy.

Had I followed the path set in motion for me, I would be on my way to receiving a Master’s degree in anthropology, living full-time in Switzerland, and being absolutely miserable. Swiss culture, amazing as it is and as attached as I am to friends and family living there, is not the right setting for me.

It took taking a step back from my normal, from the standards forced on me over the almost-two-decades of living there, to understand that. To even be able to question it. And I want kids to have the freedom to do so, long before they reach that random age that qualifies them as ‘adults’.

As an educator, I let the kids go nuts.

Honestly.

I let them live in chaos as much as I can, with respect to the ridiculous parameters of Georgia state regulation for early childhood education.

The kids go nuts, learn to interact with each other, ask questions, explore the world, and playplayplay.

Without much help from me — that help not being truly essential most of the time — the kids are accessing key elements in the learning process. They learn to live in a community-based context, where some social codes exist that actually make sense. They develop fine motor skills by scrawling strange lines and circles on paper. They piece puzzles together, developing their logic, reasoning and spatial awareness.

The kids are learning without me needing to educate them. I’m just a witness to it, and sometimes an inspiration for the next thing they want to learn.

That’s exactly how I like it. And some of the kids’ sudden interest in hand-knitting — after they’ve seen me knit a scarf during their nap time — feels a lot like validation for my ideas.

Stop expecting your kids to play into social codes that simply don’t make sense.

Step away from your kids’ learning process and bear witness to their brilliance.

Let them educate themselves.

)

Rebecca Zeines

Copyeditor, Dreamer, Agile Facilitator and all-around joyful misfit

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