Use Personal Teacher Leadership Experiences To Teach Your Student
Can teachers use curriculum to train your children as future pillars of the community? What other ways can you develop your children to become leaders in the future? The first thing to do is to change your own education paradigm.
“What is your education paradigm?”
Most of you attended a public or private school. Those schools are like a factory where your kids start in kindergarten progressing to first grade, much like a conveyor-belt system. Everybody learns the same thing at each grade level or should I say each station on the conveyor-belt. Your children are told what to read, believe and think. Even if classics are introduced, it still makes no difference. The classic approach in a conveyor belt model still makes your kids think about what they’ve learned at school, but not to think beyond that.
This type of spoon-feeding or force-feeding teaching is evident in most schools. I don’t think it’s wrong, but it doesn’t accomplish the goal of educating children for the future as leaders. Here’s an example. First, you listen to a lecture. Then your kids start thinking about the what they’ve read and listened. After that, there is a quiz to ascertain if your child knows what the educator believes on these lectures . . . not what your child is “thinking” in these lectures. As said well by John Gatto below.
After you fall into the habit of accepting what other people tell you to think, you lose the power to think for yourself. John Taylor Gatto, A Different Teacher, 2002
When you are continually being force-fed with information, you start to become dependent and have difficulty in thinking for yourself. To become future leaders, it is important to modify your education paradigm that you use with your children.
How do you look at education? Do you believe educators needs textbooks for everything? If so, you are training your children to follow. The underlying assumption of textbooks is that the teacher and student do not know enough to evaluate resources so the textbook author will do it for you. All the student has to do is learn the conclusions of the textbook to become successful in “school”. This model of education makes great followers who learn what to think.
Ponder for a moment. Textbooks give students questions to answer. If the student can answer the chosen questions on a test, he can move on to the next piece of information. Textbooks do not encourage students to think outside of the answers in the teacher’s manual. This model has provided our society with highly trained, but poorly educated graduates.
Leadership education takes a different approach to curriculum. One of the essential elements of leadership education is teaching how to think. I don’t think your children should complete their education and not know how to think on their own. Shifting your educational model from “what to think” to “how to think” can be a major change in your life. Below are some practical ways to set a foundation for this type of education by starting with yourself.
As you develop your children to think, you may see some changes happening in your household This new type of education involves the whole family and binds them together so it takes a little time of adjustment. It may first take a toll on the parent because all the effort begins from you. It’s not as easy as handing them books and telling them to start learning and thinking. Those textbooks only serve to teach them “what to think”, not prepare them “how to think” for themselves.
To begin your own education as a teacher or parent, start by reading one classic. Choose a classic that interests you. If you’re not sure what classic to read, consult a young adult classics list. After you finish your first classic book, read another one. Repeat this until you have read four or five classics. You are off to the start of a fine education for yourself.
Your kids will have a different view on what education is if they see you studying and learning. Plus, you will eventually want to share what you’ve learned because you will be so excited with what you are learning.
After reading four or five classic books, incorporate a writing session. Keep a reading journal at your side when reading the sixth one. Write what you think about the classic and then share it with someone. Sharing your insights with others is vital to becoming a leader yourself, so model this for your children.
On to your own children! When starting with your kids, read aloud a classic together. The first one should be for enjoyment purposes only. If they are not used to it at first, its better to read several before going to the journal making and discussion part.If you think they are ready, request them to write in their special journal after each reading. Next, start a discussion about what your children wrote.
Francis Bacon said, “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.” The foundation of good instruction which is reading, writing and discussing is a good way to develop your kids into being able to think on their own. It is absolutely essential that your children, the future leaders, be able to think by themselves and one of the best ways is to get them to read, write and discuss classics.
Kerry Beck has been featured in magazines and radio shows and would like you to discover the best leadership education homeschool curriculum by giving you a free mini-course, ” What Is Leadership In Education “?
