Year after year, class begins with dozens of kids seated in parallel rows nervously anticipating my every movement. They come to class wondering what I will do instead of what they will do. In their minds, class is supposed to feed them something, but what that is they have no idea. They only know that this year they have six new classes; they hope that this year, unlike last year, they are taught something worthwhile.
In my class, they are. They are taught that it is their job to teach themselves. They are taught that education is not about giving me the answer I am looking for, but the answer that is on their minds. Most of the kids I teach are not ready to share what is in their heads. It has never been asked of them. They have been taught that their experiences are not relevant, not important to the curriculum so meticulously devised and revised to insure passage of the test.
So they stare up at me, wondering what answer I am expecting. I know this because they tell me. I never accept their initial response to any question. “Why?” I ask. “Because, ” they say. “Because Why?” I ask. “Because that is what I think,” they say. “Why do you think that?” I respond. Until they become frustrated, and this is when it comes. Every year, in every class, in every grade level, the kids inevitably blurt out, “What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you to say anything,” I reply. “I want to know why you think what you think.” Class has officially begun. Rows upon rows of kids, each different, each an individual, but taught for years that that their differences are not important, that their identities are not relevant to the “curriculum.”
Indentity is everything. Education begins with the self; when kids begin to study their own thoughts, when they begin to recognize the roots of their feelings, of their points of view, they get excited about learning. Because now in everything they do, in literature, in history, in science, in psychology, they find a little more of themselves. And the more they find, the more they look.
It is now that they take the reigns. And at some point in every class, I am able to sit with the class instead of in front. And when the kids, in the middle of a heated discussion, turn and call on me, I tell them what I am thinking. And since they have the reigns, they smile big, and ask me, “Why, Mr. Golburgh?”
Atala Education 