As I was skimming the book shelf waiting for my 8 hour flight to depart, a simple white book catched my immediate attention. The title read “It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be” I stared at it as if I was in a trance, not moving yet thinking… How many times had I come accross a situation where I thought I wasn't good enough to complete the task because the skill required “wasn´t there”. English period was just about to end, but then Mr.Scoular´s words pierced my mind, “Your next project is to right a short vignette about any place you want using all five senses.” Suddenly I felt that I was back in my chair sitting in my 8th grade class, my elbow almost slipping from the table. As my eyes shifted upwards to see Mr. Bossung handing me the same assignment that I was just given, that when my excited face turned into a frown and a head full of confusions. A six out of ten marked in my paper. I thought I done a good job, maybe I wasn't good enough at writing. My mind went back to reality, I wouldn't let this memory haunt my descriptive writing forever, I decided I would make myself proud by the end of the assignment. And by the end I did, it is one of the works I am most proud of, I even read it from now and then to keep my motivation up. We, humans often take the easy path when we feel too challenged. That way is better because we can succeed with no attempt of effort, and stay in our comfort zone. Even though we are gaining a success, we are losing an opportunity. Not just any opportunity, but one that would allow you to grow, not only academically but mentally. Step outside the safe and become part of the adventure. If you believe in yourself you can do it, it doesn't matter where you are start, even if you´re standing at the bottom. You can get anything you set your mind to and finally reach that goal you have been waiting for. You need to stop undervaluing yourself and because you are not qualified. You CAN grow, just have the correct mindset. Value learning as a goal, even if you need to encounter a few initial errors, it's okay that will make you fail better next time, just like I did the second time I was given the english assignment. When you feel like you're failing just come back with better strategies, realise your mind from negativity and turn it into positivity. That way you will turn the unthinkable assignment into something thinkable and possible. Good things do happen to those who just wait, but if you go for them then extraordinary events happen.
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I raised my head slowly and there he was, my teacher looking at me with an indignant face, his eyebrows forming a "v". “What are you doing?” he asked. “I am experimenting with adobe illustrator” I replied confused. “You'll have to do that at home, right now just finish your logos.” Thats how it all starts. And as Peter Gray states “What school is all about- suppressing curiosity and enthusiasm so students can complete assignments in a timely manner.”
I am one of the 18 students to participate in a new program at my school, Innovation Academy. This program enforces a different type of education, pushing you to innovate and solve problems in new ways while giving you a more independent personality. We were instructed to do a independent project of any type we want based on our passions and hobbies. I now have a dilemma, being so focused on school and its boundaries I am in a difficult position to explore my passions. Even though I have some interests, such as photography or architecture, I am scared to explore them in depth because of the school´s constantly same instructions and limitations. To understand the process of this situation there are five defined stages... Like stated before schools don't ignite enthusiasm or broadcast further insights. Children nowadays are not given the suitable freedom for the right educations, they are not free to pursue their own interests. They are given ONE problem and only ONE solution because another solution is just incorrect. All activities, skills or traits that require are abolished or derailed by schools. This including curiosity, playfulness and meaningful conversation. These factors motivates children to be in quest for new knowledge and then experiment and use these new acquired skills. Because of the absence “They don't explore alternative ways to solve the problem (even if they are allowed to, which they often are not), and they therefore fail to learn all the dimensions of the problem or the full power” Due to all these boundaries students start to loose interest in most school subjects. This can even be verified in large scale studies. Though research made in schools more democratic and with self directed learning interests seem to increase due to the fact that they mostly specialize in the part that they most like in each subject. As they lose most interests they are not eager or motivated to find new activities or skills to develop. When it comes to the day then you are given autonomy in a project or decision. For instance, choosing your career or in my case the independent project, you are trapped in a problem. In which you don´t know what to do because you have been enclosed in school boundaries. Always having a desire to innovate and never having the chance to. So having to be a risk taker and take on something you are not used to can be scary. You are scared of doing things another way because you were always given ONE solution. The thing is that you have to overcome it and reach the goal. Right after that is when the fear of failure comes in. Like I mentioned you are frightened by the idea of stepping outside those walls built my schools. So going into something now know implants the idea of failure. It states that when you fail you need to take a new project because it just wasn't for you. Though what lots of people don´t know is that all success starts with failure. Because without out it you will never get better because you wouldn't be able to learn new things if you haven't tried them. Exactly this idea is not explained and taught at many schools. So...since this fear of failure is created students don´t want to be independent and autonomy is suppressed forming a constant battle between autonomy and failure. “I work under a great deal of tension”, “I have certainly had more than my share of things to worry about”, “I am afraid of losing my mind”. In a survey made by a psychologist to determine how levels of anxiety and depression have changed, these were some statements that were asked for yes or no answers. I bet that most 10 graders, just as me would answer them as to show high rates of these disorders. In the book Free To Learn, Peter Gray suggests another perspective to the modern educational systems. This perspective certainly offers a doubt, suggesting that students nowadays should have more free play, or having a more student-led projects and choices. This would DECREASE the anxiety and depression levels and INCREASE the sense of control in situations.
Further in the book Gray presents us with a hypothetical person no explain how students in modern times spend their days. This character is called Evan he spends hours in school sitting at his desk listening to teachers, following instructions and taking tests. While reading first sentences, while the author was describing Evan, it was like he was narrating MY LIFE. On the other hand, I don't find myself as having a such busy life as this character but han hugely relate. For example, Peter Gray also mentions that Evan´s school reduced recess time to have more time at school, that is exactly what my school has done and now the school policy is to have 40 minutes of recess. It was 11:30 pm and I had just finished the math project that was due at 11:59 am. You may now think “She must have left all until the end and procrastinate”, so let me tell you I didn´t. The night before that I had also stayed until that hour. Since I woke up at 6:30 am and went to school until 3:30 pm I just thought about school. I then arrived at my house set up my things and went right back to work. I finished and went to sleep ALL day I had been doing homework or working at school except for those 30 minutes from school to my house in which I slept. I even worked while eating. This types of projects, homework and any school work that prevents free play for children to happen. The same type of free play that helps me and all children. School has overpowered their lives subtly. Their systems have “fostered an attitude in society that children learn and progress primarily by doing tasks that are directed and evaluated by adults, and that children's own activities are a waste of time. So yes, future generation´s childhood has been ruined. Schools are simple numbers, they rely in a compound of lines and curves in a paper. These are obtained by taking tests that are compared and evaluated to determine who is the best. Tests that require information acquired by memory and that is forgotten after a few weeks. It then creates a competition that leads on to the roads of depression and low self esteem. “Children are pawns in a competitive game in which adults around them are trying to squeeze the highest possible scores...” What is left out of context is the real knowledge that is obtained my children. Their incorporation of informations and ideas, their understanding and their reaction towards the world that surrounds them. Students should be given more autonomy and a more exploratory work that hinders the capacity to think outside the box and offer more space to innovate. What is school planning to do next? Take out student´s recess and giving them enough time only to eat? Give children six hours of homework? Have school end at 5 pm? Nowadays it is pretty much close to this extent. Children and not allowed to go outside and play by their own rules and no supervision what because “they may get murdered or abducted or bullied” this cases have even decreased and with it free play has as well. Gray says it all “What kind of a society do we live in if our children cannot play safely and freely outdoors?” |
Cristina BarclayCurrent eleventh grader at Colegio Franklin Delano Roosevelt, taking the IB diploma program. Archives
May 2016
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