Message from jmallard

[Anonymous]

The question posed about the educational system and being connected to helping our students falls into a long list of problems. Common Core has a lot of push back from teachers and parents, however it is needed because it truly helps students to think critically. Our educational structure is so in a box that we have trained our kids to think only one way to get an answer. Many teachers find it hard because its easier to simply teach that "one way" to solve a problem. It's up to teachers in the classroom and parents at home to allow our students to think outside of the box. We can set a bar such as a rubric, but still allow students to navigate their way to the top instead of telling them the one or maybe two ways to get there when in fact there can be multiple ways. Using career success as an analogy, and seeing Stephen and the way he navigated to the position he is at today is not the traditional way our mind is structured for a person to be hired or have the necessary experience for that position. So we have to start at the Pre- K level to have this type of open ended type of thinking and creativity and allow it to continue throughout for students. If we continue this as teachers in our educational system, I believe over time we can change the idealist type of thinking we have in mind for a person to reach multiple levels of success.
edited by jmallard on 7/25/2016