Sit down, shut up and listen!

Sit down, shut up and listen!

If you're ever interested in demoralizing teaching and learning and turning a school experience into a disaster for everyone invloved, this is the formula that I want you to apply because it works. Ask Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. They disappeared from school faster than free beer at a hockey game. (Actually, they ended up with a much more thorough education than their peers...and more wealthy.)

In a time when brain research shows that kids actually need more time to run, breathe hard, and express themselves physically (see Enriching the Brain by Eric Jensen), we actually have schools across America cutting recess time so teachers can raise standardized test scores! I know, because my own kids' school is one of them. This would actually be okay if standardized test scores were worth more than they really are...but they're not! I can't tell you how much this makes me scream. We have schools that care more about their clock/bell schedule than real learning! It's like having all the busses on time and ready to go, but nobody knows where or why they're moving. It's very "corporate" to me. (I don't know why I say "corporate". Maybe I mean to say it has a very cold feel to it, which is what I think of when I hear "corporate".)

Design a school with a kid in mind, find or design a structure that supports this and watch the kids learn. More on this later.