There is an old saying: “If the men in a society are not initiated into it, they will destroy it.” I believe that we live in those times. I think of education as two things: an opportunity to learn information, and the recognition that our learning moves us along to the next stage of life.
This thought brings up a question about which of these should be the main goal of education. Is education about teaching information, or is education about moving to the next stage of life and all that entails? If it is the latter (which I believe it to be) then our learning should include our knowledge about ourselves and our emotional development.
Often those in the education system are mainly trained in educating the mind and teaching information. This is not a surprise, as that is how they experienced school. Whenever I teach, I encourage students to consider who they are in this moment, where they are going, and how the information they are learning in the class relates to their personal lives.
Honesty in the answers to those questions is crucial. Honesty allows students to be who they are rather than who or what they think is expected of them. Honesty allows them to recognize how their learning is connected to their life journey. Once we have connected our learning and our life, we have created a class, course, or program that helps usher the student into the next stage of their learning, and the next stage of their life. Placing some of our attention on this part of the process makes that transition clearer.
Questions to help students along their path
I know that what I have been saying sounds quite theoretical, so I would like to suggest some questions you might try asking your students to help them along their path:
- What could you do with the information you are learning in the future?
- What could make it more meaningful?
- What do you think about this subject?
- How do you feel about what you are learning?
Offering these opportunities, and any others that you can dream up, reminds your students that the subject they are studying does not exist in a box. It is part of the interwoven world in which we live. It is learning on a continuum that runs from information to the integration of that learning into a person, using what they know in an ever changing and dynamic world.
At AVRO, this is how we think about every course we teach: not as information to be stored, but as a step in a young person’s growth. If that sounds like the kind of learning your teen has been missing, we would love to show you what it looks like in practice.