Originally Posted by mnmom23
Originally Posted by Grinity
Anyone go a link to the article 'What a child doesn't learn?'

http://www.wku.edu/academy/?p=430

Okay... this made me cry.

Ouch. I'm pretty sure that my 11yo hasn't learned most of that, and we've been desperately trying for the last seven years... but she (like a lot of kids) isn't too happy about learning some of those things. We hear endlessly about "letting her be a kid" and the like, without any apparent understanding that we are just hoping for her to learn the relationships between her character and actions-- and results. frown

Instead, she's learned:

a) if it isn't easy, I must not be good at it, so I won't try and you can't make me

b) I can't look less than perfect, because that might mean that I'm not really as smart as everyone seems to think that I am

c) Education is about showing off what you know

d) Education isn't about novelty

e) school is about not getting tripped up so that you don't get less than 100%

f) "not knowing" makes me feel stupid, and I don't like that feeling. Ergo, I don't like it when I don't already know something

g) I should avoid risks, since that is what leads to feeling stupid after I make mistakes,

e) most of life is about busywork.


frown Sad.



Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.