A while ago, I wrote and submitted a letter to The Garden Island to voice my concerns about the No Child Left Behind nationwide policy that just doesn’t cut the mustard. Many people expressed similar viewpoints about the “well-intended” program
A while ago, I wrote and submitted a letter to The Garden Island to voice my concerns about the No Child Left Behind nationwide policy that just doesn’t cut the mustard. Many people expressed similar viewpoints about the “well-intended” program that has created commotion, despair, frustration, and havoc within the educational system.
As a follow-up, I humbly present the following:
I suggest that there be serious consideration for an education system based on providing the variables of “Life’s Lessons” which may include:
• Learning how to “live and let live.” The lessons can be both formal and informal — in the classroom and on the playground, at lunch time and at assemblies. Admittedly, some of this is already happening. There needs to be more.
• The art of self-reliance and the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. What can be more important than to be provided the skills and the wherewithal to be self-sufficient and, at the same time, learning how to get along with one another?
• The quest to be “interested” and “interesting” as an individual. Nurturing one’s natural curiosity is THE building block in an educational system; In the development of self, to become an interesting person should be an individualistic pursuit. Teachers need to be more than “information” providers. Teachers need to place more emphasis on HOW they teach and whether they are using methods that encourage the students to WANT to learn.
• Developing, encouraging, and nurturing of one’s abilities. This supports #3 and becomes the work of the learner and the teacher engaged in the enhancement processes thereof. Perhaps, the methods in training teachers how to teach needs to be re-visited.
• Discovering one’s “personal genius.” This is just a hyperbolic way of deeming each person as having qualities and capabilities that need to be recognized. If the classroom can become fertile ground for stimulating interests, the dynamics of teaching and learning will change dramatically.
• Providing opportunities for fine-tuning environmental awareness with management techniques that foster respect and responsibility for sustainability practices and procedures. It is time to for the human species to realize how it may impact the planet, Earth, and to become pro-actively engaged in solution-based approaches in our relationship to our environment.
• Promoting personal health and well-being. From diets to exercise and from choices to lifestyle management, there are some paradigm shifts that should be seriously considered.
Will it matter how well we read, write, and think? Of course, it will. Will these approaches diminish academic priorities? Of course, it won’t.
The shift in emphasis on how well we must learn to live as an educational priority, however, might have more of a meaningful and lasting impact on the lives of future generations to come.
• Jose Bulatao Jr. is a retired educator and Kekaha resident.
