Learning Should Be About the Journey
Before I knew I wanted to be an educator, I knew about “teaching to the test.” I knew about this concept because this was me in my high school classes. I would be taught only what the exam wanted me to regurgitate, and then I would spend time articulating those regurgitated answers on a piece of paper. That was how I was told I was smart — I became a human catbird.
“Teaching to the Test: A method of education that focuses solely on teaching the material that will be on tests and exams rather than imparting a wider understanding of the overall subject.” — Urban Dictionary
I didn’t know how much it would impact me until I later became an educator.
The big dirty secret? Educator’s (particularly public education) creativity, love, and passion for their career is being stifled by curriculum changes, budget cuts, and (you guessed it) teaching to the test.
All of this should not come as a shock to you.
Schools are more focused on graduation rates than the actual idea of students learning meaningful material that will benefit them later. More importantly, schools don’t teach students how to connect to their studies anymore. I see this all the time in my college students. They tell me, “I wish someone would have taught me this in high school, when it would have started making a difference.”
The truth is, we are failing our society. We are failing them because we are teaching them to follow the herds — we are teaching them to be a collective intelligence (thank you Tarde, Le Bon and Freud).
But somewhere along the line, our society lost it’s love for learning. That’s apparent in budget cuts alone, and it’s represented as a massive back hand to our educational systems. The people that can make a difference won’t. And the people that are making a difference, are doing it on their own dime.
Learning should be about the journey. It should be about the “I” before, the “I” after, and everything in between. It should be about giving knowledge to others, sharing in success.
Most importantly, it should be about ALWAYS learning, continually learning.
“Once you stop learning, you start dying.” — Albert Einstein.
I teach my students something that’s so simple and yet so life changing.
The art of being autodidactic.
“Autodidactic: A person who has learned a subject without the benefit of a teacher or formal education; a self-taught person.” — Dictionary.com
I teach my students this, I teach them how to be self-learners. They learn far beyond my classroom, they stay curious about the world, and they are better because of it.
It’s as simple as teaching someone how to learn. Suggesting they dig deeper, asking them to switch perspectives, to see another angle, to offering a bigger picture, to sometimes making the picture smaller… It’s about showing students the world, and asking them to describe what they focus on and then have them explain why that one thing has their eye. Now, taking that moment of sheer, childlike, engrossed, engagement and finding a way to apply that to each topic they learn. I’m talking Shakespearean sonnets, computing sine and cosine, and learning about molecular biology.
THAT’S what makes someone a good teacher.
Teaching them how to learn so that they don’t need to be spoon fed, so that they don’t need to rely on the teacher lecturing at the front.
I’ll give an example since I brought up sonnets and most of my previous high school students “hate” poetry. Or they did, until I start the unit by analyzing an Atmosphere rap song for imagery, rhyme scheme, diction, allegory, and meter. I have them hooked, every time. I usually always get the class to write the dreadful Shakespearean sonnet without complaining. How?! Because I made Shakespeare applicable.
Educators should NOT be solely lecturers (*cough *cough, every college class I’ve ever taken).
Educators should be quiet guiders, the individuals in the classroom asking students, “Why do you think that?” or “Why is that?” or even “How do you figure that out?”
Educators should recommend a certain way of learning something, and applaud when a student finds an alternate but equally successful path.
If you’ve stopped learning, you should start again.
Pick up a new hobby. Watch a YouTube tutorial on something you’ve always wanted to do. Be kind of great at a lot of things. Find passion in finding passions.
Do it for you. But most importantly, do it for those that have already thrown in the towel — for those that have given up on learning and are content where they are, or think they are already good enough as they are.
Key word, good enough.
Learn to be great enough.
We only have this one life. Why not spend it learning?
Thank you for your time, your support, and for being a part of my journey!
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