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Most people understand that the early years are an important time in a child’s development, but recent research is painting a startling picture of how the experiences and interactions that occur from conception to age six drastically affect the trajectory of children’s lives, their success in school and who they will become as adults.
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Changing large systems is difficult. When you grow up and succeed within the traditional system, it’s hard to see what’s wrong and it’s even harder to imagine that we can do it any other way. Traditional schooling models are entrenched in our collective psyches and in our culture and, as a society, we have invested a great deal in keeping them the way they are. Sometimes, it’s easier to rally behind the very loud voices of “educational reform” than to dig deeper, think longer term and contemplate a complete re-envisioning of the system as we know it.
Read more Canada has a strong history of investment (both philosophical and financial) in public education. Over 40 billion dollars is spent annually on getting our children from kindergarten to grade 12, yet public opinion polls show confidence in the education system is at an all-time low, home schooling is growing exponentially and the percentage of children attending private schools has doubled in the past 25 years. Although public education certainly appears to work for a percentage of our children, an increasing number of factors point to a deeply flawed system.
Read more Have you ever wondered why we have separated elementary and secondary schools? Why schools are broken into subjects? Why our schools look suspiciously like factories? It’s often more a result of inherited practice, political and social forces and economic influences – than because we know it’s best for our children.
Read more Canada has a lot to be proud of when it comes to education. We rank well internationally, our schools are filled with intelligent, passionate educators, access is free and the majority of our youth graduate from high school to join a diverse and primarily peaceful, well-functioning society. Many of us, however, have a niggling suspicion that something isn’t quite right. When you can’t think of a single teenager who enjoys school and is excited to learn – something is wrong. When teachers can’t possibly use teaching strategies that support deeper learning because the curriculum is too crowded – something is wrong. And when we have increasing rates of youth violence, apathy, depression and suicide – something is very definitely wrong.
Read more Young children don’t need to be rewarded to learn… the desire to learn is natural. …And as nearly every parent of a preschooler or kindergartner will attest, they play with words and numbers and ideas, asking questions ceaselessly, with as truly intrinsic a motivation as can be imagined. As children progress through elementary school, though, their approach to learning becomes increasingly extrinsic. – Alfie Kohn
Read more We now understand that evolution has provided humans with a powerful toolkit of predispositions that go a long way in explaining our ability to learn language, cooperate in groups, solve problems, plan for the future and empathize with others. This evolutionary inheritance both empowers us and constrains us. We are born ready to learn, but our brains are wired to learn more effectively under certain conditions. Humans learn best when we ‘go with the grain of the brain’ instead of against it.
Imagine schools designed to work in alignment with everything we now know about how kids learn, grow and thrive. Read more Evidence is mounting that we arrive into the world with a genetically pre-set timetable for how we go about growing that remaining 60% of our brains – complete with sensitive or critical periods when specific parts of the brain are primed to grow and develop.
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