Comic From: WeTheRobots



I like this comic a lot. We should never teach our kids to do things just for the sake of doing them. I say this without having any kids of my own yet.

Anecdotally we hear that the kids causing the most trouble in school are the ones who are either way ahead and bored out of their gourd, or are way behind and feel like acting out is a way of sidestepping their supposed shortcomings. There are serious issues with our education system nowadays, and I think one of them is age stratification.

A child's mind goes through various developmental steps, beginning with basic tracking skills, understanding that the shapes they're seeing are "things", and understanding that when something is out of view it does indeed continue to exist. Another important step for a child is learning how to speak and converse. Looking back at the development of a child it does not atter one bit, at exactly what age these skills are masters (within reason obviously). If we are not in argument on this point, how are we to say that all children who will turn 7 between August 30, 2008 and August 30, 2009 must learn all of their shapes, numbers, and letters by May 5, 2009? This same line of logic goes for reading, mathematical, and memorization skills.

The Montessori method of teaching is not easy because it flies in the face of most everything we've been spoonfed growing up (at least if you went to a "traditional" school). From what I gather kids learn at their own pace and pursue areas of study agreed upon by student and teacher. Of course there will be subjects students may want to shy away from, but that is to be expected when dealing with true individuals.

This sounds great on paper, and I'm sure there are homeschooled people who would advocate such a system, but I wonder how difficult it is to run a school with this type of mentality? Would it require a tremendous increase in the teaching staff, or would the teachers be there to guide and not spoonfeed the information? There's a Montessori school nearby, I may have to stop by sometime to ask questions.