As I venture into the ‘halls’ of the Clover Park Education as a school board candidate, I have three questions:
What knowledge and curriculum are we pouring into the mind of our children?
How are we active in igniting the minds of our children to truly stive in learning and discovery?
What are we doing that hinders the first two efforts?
Grade school seem like another lifetime before Junior and Senior High School. My parents placed me in a Catholic School for grades 1 through 8. There were two classes per grade and each class (and each respective classroom) literally included 50 children. Almost every class was instructed by nun dress in complete full-length black with some white facial accessories. There were some discipline issues with non-compliant students now and then, but for the most part our teacher was in complete control of order.
For a small shy fellow, my deportment (behavior) was predicably excellent. I hardly said a word unless I had to. I do not exactly remember my grades, but I think they were fairly average. Every quarter the Parish priest would sit at the teachers desk and gaze upon our grade performance and offer a ‘very good’ or ‘not bad-try harder’. I usually got ‘hmmmf not bad…’ and then had to sheepishly take the card home for sign off.
I made it through grade school without flunking a grade (I knew others who had) and seemed good enough.
In hindsight, I got through grade school and Jr and Sr high school and was surely not deprived of an education and opportunity to learn knowledge. What was missing for me was a desire to truly learn and become all I was endowed to become. I was missing that ‘ignited fire’ to learn and discover. For me (and for many others) that ignition came a bit later.
Jeff Brown
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be ignited.
-Plutarch, a 1st century Greek and Roman philosopher