When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,

a miracle,

it was beautiful, magical

And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily

joyfully, playfully, watching me

But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical

And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical

• supertramp

Our industrial factory educational system has become dysfunctionally obsessed with standardized testing. We measure and rank children’s value based on their ability to regurgitate formulaic answers.

Not only is standardized testing a poor measurement of value, but worse…. It cripples creativity. And it stigmatizes mistakes.

If we stigmatize mistakes, it makes us afraid to be wrong. If we are afraid of being wrong, we will never come up with anything new. No new ideas. No original thoughts. No breakthrough solutions.

Solution:

We need to discover new methods to engage the minds of our kids and ignite their own passion for lifelong learning.

Etymologically, the word ‘education’ is derived from the Latin ēdūcō (“to lead forth, to raise up)

Education therefore should be designed to “lead forth and raise up” the very best possible version that each individual child was designed to be. NOT to “impose upon” and standardize them into little catalogued robots that reproduce yesterday’s recipes.

We need to be very careful to not let school get in the way of our kids education.