Part of the disconnect in modern education is this incredible belief that a child who is actively engaged in doing interesting things cannot be "getting an education." At the same time, people think that a child sitting at a desk, answering questions out of a text book, on topics that have no present relationship to the child's life or needs, is being educated.
Do not be fooled by this self-serving way of thinking. How many middle school boys, especially, unable to sit at a desk doing insipidly boring and meaningless tasks are then drugged so that they will sit there quietly and look like they are being "educated?" This is the modern system's answer.
Don't buy it.
The middle school child does not need a repeat of the academic work he or she received over and over in elementary school. Neither should they be focused on "college prep."
The middle school child should be learning about the world in which he or she lives. They should get their hands dirty. They should be making things, building things, fixing things, growing things, operating things, raising things. They should be running and shouting. They should be involved in large active projects that are both interesting and valuable to the people in their life.
A child cannot know what he or she would enjoy in life simply because they have not had the chance to try all the kinds of activities that are available in the world.
When I was in 9th grade, I took a vocational introduction course. The first quarter was electricity, the second drafting, the third metal working, and the fourth woodworking. Electricity was interesting, but I didn't connect. I loved drafting. I hated metal working. I liked woodworking, but not in a school shop with lots of other kids. After the course was over, I forgot about all those things for the rest of high school.
Yet, in my adult life, I am a woodworker, yes. I still hate metal working or anything to do with mechanics. I continue to be indifferent to electrical work, though I can wire a house. And designing homes is a passion for me.
Yet here's the funny thing. I am a teacher. And I had no idea that I was a teacher until I was 28 years old and was offered the job of teaching a class of 4 students English in a small Christian school. I had never been to college.
And I would never have known that I was a teacher if I had not stepped into that classroom and tried it. College, including a Master's of Education degree came later.
What am I getting at?
Neither children, nor any of us, can know what makes us sing, what things we truly love, until we get a chance to do them. For every several things we get the chance to do once or twice in a lifetime, we may really like only one. But we would never have discovered that one unless we had tried several.
That is why project-led learning is so important for the middle school child, especially the boys. When I say that, I don't mean that girls do not deserve project-led learning equally as much as boys. It is because girls are somehow able to tolerate insipid boredom better than boys. Middle school boys just can't handle it and should not be forced to.
If a child does 14 projects a year across a wide range of activities, during half of 6th grade, all of 7th and 8th grades and half of 9th grade, that is a total of 42 different projects. Out of those 42 projects, the child might discover several that become life long joys, and possibly, even, the very thing they were made to do in this life.
Busy text-book work can never give that to anyone.
~~~
For more on project-led learning, visit Project-Led Learning.
Maybe you have a student homeschooling high school and you want to know that they can write effectively both in entering college and for life. Or maybe you want to learn to write (and teach writing) well. Check out The Writing Conservatory. You will be intrigued by what you see.
Edited
Comments
There have been no comments yet