Wednesday, January 14, 2015

5 Steps For Re-Humanizing Education



Charlotte's reminder to herself
a treasure I found inside her notebook at the end of a long day


The words "education reform" many times sit side by side in the same sentence with these words:
scores
evaluation
standards
grades
curriculum
data
rankings
percentiles
punishments
rewards
top
bottom
best
worst

De-humanizing words.

Words that have the ability to cultivate cultures of anxiety, pressure, and that many times come with humiliating and debilitating consequences for teachers and children.

As educators, we must never forget that we are a human organization, a profession of beating hearts and working minds and hopeful futures. It is our job and our duty to re-humanize education, to cultivate and grow organizations that empower educators and the children in our care.

How can we do this?
We must...

1. Cultivate Relationships.
2. Cultivate Conversation, Collaboration, and Problem Solving.
3. Cultivate Mindset Shifts.
4. Cultivate Meaningful Work.
5. Cultivate Playfulness and Joy.

What must-haves for re-humanizing education would you add to the list?
Let's have conversations not about how to raise scores or be #1, but how to cultivate the minds and hearts of the humans in our care.


7 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow!! Wisdom that I need....Too often we fall into the trap of focusing on the first list of words! Thanks for the reminder my friend!

Cathy said...

Ann Marie,
This is beautiful. This line was my favorite: "As educators, we must never forget that we are a human organization, a profession of beating hearts and working minds and hopeful futures."

Always glad to see you back on the blog.

Cathy

Mr. Fitz said...

Cultivate creativity. It can help cultivate joy, and believe it or not, actually save lives. Also cultivate problem identification, which can be even more important than problem solving. This is a great list! You have identified the real problem, which isn't test scores, but how we're not investing in students as human beings. Thank you. You might enjoy this post: http://realmrfitz.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-intellectual-bank-account-how-to.html

Margaret Simon said...

Cultivate is such a great word. It means to plant and water and nourish so that something is given the best opportunity to grow. We need to start these conversations and continue these conversations until the word cultivate replaces the words common and core.

fauxtaographer said...

Follow the mystery, learn to search, ask questions and seek pathways.
Explore art, music, writing. Create something then let it lead you. Dance with it. Sing with it.

ReaderWithin said...

Thank you. This is exactly what we need. It is also what great teachers everywhere are providing.

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful way to remind us what is really important in the classroom, thank you :)

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