I’ve decided to make it a point to start writing something every day. This is not a new decision but it’s another time that I’m starting this again. I best embodied this when I was still in secondary school- when I used to blog on diary-x, and I took a lot of pride in the fact that I’d blog every single day- sometimes about meaningful stuff, most often about frivolous nonsense.

The thing is, the meaningful stuff doesn’t happen nearly often enough if you’re not willing to risk the frivolous stuff. You know what I mean?

10 year olds and Google Maps

My girlfriend was telling me an interesting story about a classroom situation. She was tasked with going through a story with her primary 3 kids (9 and 10 year olds) and it was about Vietnam- I think about the markets there or something. My girlfriend’s travelled quite a bit, so she shared her experiences with the kids- and they were enraptured, but they were also clueless as to all the countries she was telling them about.

So she started up Google Maps and showed them where all the countries were, and for a good 45 minutes or so, she had them eating out of the palm of her hand. She was enjoying the sharing, the kids were enjoying learning about the world, about direct first hand experiences from a fellow human being who was passionate about what she had to say.

Then, of course, my girlfriend felt a pang of responsibility and had to go back to reading the story- which surely, by now, has become stale in comparison. She then told me, semi-jokingly, how she’d like to set up her own “tuition/enrichment center” where there’s no syllabus- once a week parents will send their kids to receive a near-random session of sharing and learning. She then proceeded to poke holes in her own idea, as we all tend to do: who would possibly want that for their kids?

Hey, I would. When I look back on my school days, my favourite times where always when my teachers found a little bit of space to share something sincere, important, meaningful.

Kids can smell your bullshit

We vastly underestimate the ability that children have to tell when the person talking to them is bullshitting them. Our lives are so saturated with bullshit, that when we detect sincerity and passion, we light up. We pay attention. We care. This happens even when you’re a child, or teenager. I remember the passions of all my favourite teachers, and if I am someday successful in any way, that success will owe a great debt to them.

I read a wonderful answer on Quora a while ago- How would you explain the Mars Curiosity landing to an eight year old? My favourite part of the answer is this:

“I’m a strong believer in self-directed learning. With a subject this big, there are a million possible tangents. If your child gets interested in a specific one (future human colonization of Mars, exploring other planets, etc.), I would help her veer off in that direction, rather than insisting that she stay on your intended track.”

That’s just fantastic. It’s so true. Why do we pretend that we know what’s best? The concept of a standardized syllabus is so obsolete. As my girlfriend talked about the connection she was having with her students, I found myself thinking- if I were her principal, or the Minister of Education or something, I would want to do everything in my power to ensure that she and those kids have as many of those moments as possible.

Why would you want teachers to stick to the syllabus if they can do something better? Is it because we don’t trust them? If you don’t trust your teacher to listen to the kids and figure out what matters, how can you trust your teacher with your kids at all? We either trust our teachers, or we don’t.

I’d ask, if I were a principal, or Minister- what are we trying to achieve here, as an institution, as a system? Do we want the best possible grades on standardized tests? Is that really what we want? Is that really what is best for our people, and our country?

Check out a short clip of what Steve Jobs had to say.

Now think about a teacher and a class of students, sharing an extended conversation of exploration and learning- and the time just flies by because everyone’s having so much fun, and learning, and developing their passion and interest, and compare that against the status quo- where the teacher apologetically has to skip on that- the most crucial lifeblood in anybody’s education, in my opinion- in order to cover the syllabus.

We have no idea what the future needs, and we have to stop pretending that we do. The one thing that we do know for sure, and have known forever, but seem to keep denying, is that passion is what we live for, and it’s what keeps us going, and it’s ultimately at the heart of every success story. So shouldn’t we nourish and encourage it in our students, and allow our teachers to pursue their own passions by sharing it with their kids?

We need to stop pretending and get real, and ask some very real questions about what we want for ourselves and our future- and pay careful attention to what is irrelevant and obsolete, and what is holding us back.