Ever since I wrote my children’s book series, CritterKin, which focuses on teaching kids social emotional as well as core communication skills, I’ve been working to change the education system. During the 15 years since I published the first CritterKin book, I’ve spent hundreds of hours in classrooms around the world and can attest to the fact that the issue this piece addresses is pervasive and engrained.
Again and again I have been told that creativity, emotional intelligence, and ability to fail forward (i.e. be willing to make and learn from mistakes) are not a priority — that focusing on them takes away from preparing students to take standardized tests. One principal even said, “It’s my job to say no to people like you.”
If you mean people like me who want kids to learn social emotional skills; to become self-aware and self-confident; to value their creativity, then yes, I am that person. If you mean people like me who want to encourage kids to value differences, think outside the box, and embrace trial-and-error learning (the way humans are hardwired to learn), then you’ve come to the right place. If you mean people like me who want to teach through hands on, collaborative projects that allow kids to apply lessons learned in the classroom to real world projects, then you are right again. People like me want to empower kids to have a voice and experience the joy of making a difference.
Yep that’s me, and I’m sick of being told that my ideas are good but the system isn’t ready for them yet. So enlighten me. When will the system be ready? When will we stop putting corporate greed over our children’s well-being? When will we see the connection between the narcissistic, compassionless, and downright criminal behavior of our elected officials and the education system that produced them? When will we see that teaching children to be afraid of those who are different from them is counterproductive? When will we understand that we are indeed beating empathy, curiosity, and creativity out of our children?
The irony is that teaching children to shut down their emotional intelligence, compare themselves to others, and believe that some are more deserving than others is how we get people like Trump, McConnell, Graham, Tillis, and Cruz (insert the names of all Republicans who voted against helping Americans during the pandemic). It’s how we get billionaires who feel okay about not paying their employees enough to afford rent, feed their kids or purchase healthcare. It’s how we get children locked in cages and one percent of our population that makes more than the other 90% combined.
The stupidity inherent in our system is breathtaking. By now it must be obvious that our current approach to one another and the planet is a radical fail. We need change and we need it fast if we are to avoid disasters on all fronts. We need all the creative, outside the box thinkers we can get, and we are shooting ourselves in the foot if we continue to ignore the destructive nature of our education system.
P.S. If you’d like to brainstorm and be part of the solution, you know where to find me :-)
