Effective and quality education is being neutral allowing individuals to be themselves. As a retired teacher in the state of Washington, I understand what an excellent education is. It is not about enough money, tests, or rigid teacher training; it is about a balanced philosophy for left and right brain creativity. Real education lets the inner person come alive with imagination, inspiration, and feelings.
What is a real "education"? In the fifties, we taught to the needs of the student, and then it changed to the school district deciding what we were to teach, followed by state mandates, then the federal government's "No Child Left Behind". Common Core has everyone thinking in the same box.
Current philosophy has changed. Test scores are only a number given to the results of the performance by a student on a given day on a skill learned. However, effective leaders come from the open-minded and supportive teachers where they can be creative, intuitive, and offer ideas beyond the confined thinking of the times. That is real education.
The combined thinking and philosophy of early men in education formed our educational foundation many years ago. Today, tests shame the student for not excelling within the box. This stops many students from graduating or continuing with their educational dreams. We need to focus on what a student does well to encourage a student to keep inspired. To compare one student with another is not helpful.
American education began with Horace Man. Later, John Dewey was a strong proponent for progressive educational reform. Dewey believed that human beings learn through a 'hands-on' approach. A universal education was the key to teaching people how to abandon their habits and think creatively.
A left-brain curriculum creates robots and students with poor self-esteem. The current schoolroom curriculum offers little room for balance, creativity, or insight. Without a balanced curriculum, robot teachers teach robot students. Left-brain thinking is all about learning to pass a written test. Schools currently minimize the arts, music, drama, and other imaginative classes.
With the change of focus, creativity is discouraged because book learning and test readiness takes priority. Currently, every school grade has a test to pass and instruction for this test dominates the curriculum. When I taught school, there were four standardized tests spaced between grade school and high school. The teachers monitored the growth of each student in regards to individual achievement and progression from earlier testing. Effective education is not teaching to fill a student with book learning. Good teachers leave education because they are sensitive, caring people.
The major current issue in education is not a lack of funding or other diversions prohibiting quality education. The current viewpoint of teaching is for students to think in a box for the test, rather than encouraging them to think creatively outside the box. Teachers need to assist a student in finding their own proficiency, while discovering that learning is limitless.
The movie "Spare Parts" is a great story of a teacher who encouraged disadvantaged high school students to enter a contest, against school opinion and with minimal funding, to achieve victory over Ivy League colleges in a national underwater robotics contest. The high school students were inspired to think with their imaginations and were winners twice competing against the reigning champions MIT.
In college teacher education classes, I was taught "success breeds success". The teacher's college program with a basic and diverse background, was not meant to create humiliating challenges for those becoming teachers, Recently, a college instructor supervising student teachers told me that her college students have hoops and challenges dictated from above that are almost impossible. It is more important to have an educated teacher with a rational and open mind with a healthy attitude, than a trained teacher pushed through a restrictive set of curricula that promotes conformity.
My class had been working in a math book that taught the principles of multiplication and division besides the tables for multiplication. They were able to solve every problem on the standardized test, even those typically beyond that grade level. This upset the administrative powers. The teachers were told to return to our prior math books that taught by rote learning and memorization.
A few years later several teachers in my school learned a program called The Slingerland Method. It was designed for dyslexic children. It included reading, English, spelling, phonics, penmanship, art, physical education, and composition. The results from these students were amazing. I used the teacher directed program that did not need textbooks with my whole classroom. I had some first grade students reading at the 5th and 6th grade level. We could not officially adopt this marvelous program, as the School Board would not know on which page of the book we were studying.
Pouring more money, adding curriculums, and further testing in education will not change anything as it is being taught or administrated today. When did the school shootings start? The attitude in schools changed, when prayer was not allowed anymore. As Albert Einstein, said, "Education is not the learning of facts; it's rather the training of the mind to think". Therefore, free thinkers do not accept tyranny, laws that deprive freedom, and thought control.
Cultivating the inner strength of healthy and strong young minds in America will promote growth and success. Education should not be teaching to fill a student with book learning as Bill Gates advocates. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Applying a balanced curriculum of left and right brain experiences promotes an excellent and quality education.
I promote the potential for a return to the original educational philosophy from my experience, so every student can enrich his/her life through a quality and balanced education. We need leaders to arise from the current confined thinking to search, explore, and be creative.
Marilyn Redmond is an ordained spiritual minister for counseling, regression, and healing. Redmond is an internationally board-certified regressionist for past life therapy (IBRT) and on the American Board of Hypnotherapy (ABH). She is a teacher, speaker, and medium channeling ascended beings. Her two radio shows are on the internet. Redmond sees angels from her many experiences with their help; she paints portraits of your angels. Her 10 books are at Amazon and on line at Barnes and Nobel. They have tools, information, and help you to find a higher consciousness of love, grace, and compassion. In addition, her many articles and monthly columns reveal how she achieved a consciousness of oneness. Check out Redmond's website, https://www.angelicasgifts.com / her 173 videos on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/user/puyallup98372, her blog at http://marilynredmondbooks.blogspot.com./ Contact Redmond at marilyn@angelicasgifts.com