Back to the Real Basics

 

Back to the Real Basics

In some quarters suggesting we go back to the basics in school refers to the basics of reading and arithmetic.  In the minds of many, that is where we should begin.  I want to focus less on the what but the where of that expression.  Our academic idea of what education is or what teaching and learning is and where it all began is the Socratic Method. Socrates, the Greek, sat with his groups of students and expounded on topics as diverse as knowledge was in the ancient world.  But he posed questions of his students and allowed them to think about ways to answering them.  He used, what today we refer to, as the problem based method. He presented students with a challenge and then gave them time to work on a way to meet that challenge. No way was the wrong way and no specific end was ever defined.  It was all about the journey, hence the Socratic method.  It seems to me that, today, that is what we need to turn to, to make advances not just in releasing ourselves from the grips of the pandemic, but helping our students get ahead.  Young minds don't think in terms of subjects, ever, but rather in terms of concepts, or ideas.  They work to refine those ideas and put facts together to get a clearer idea of what those concepts are all about. We talk about the scaffolding of conceptual development and that is a life long journey.  Let's use the best example from our lives today.....the concept of Democracy.  At a young age, students think of democracy in one way, but that way changes as they age and have experience of the world.  However, the point is ....the goal is....to have them have a reason to expand their idea of democracy and too understand through their readings and their problem solving that there are many aspects to democracy and they need to understand as many of them as possible. That is what literacy really is in today's world.  Our goal ought to be to facilitate the ongoing conceptual development of our students in whatever areas they are interested in.  One boy might be interested in hockey but another one in rowing or javelin.  We need to accept, like Socrates, that one size does not fit all and the learning journey is what is important, not the end, because the most important concepts have no finality,  no real end, they just keep expanding.  So, in our classrooms, we need to structure them in such a way that students find challenges that enable them to grow, in one way or another, without feeling excessively frustrated or out in left field.  We need to go back to the basics, but not just for the sons and daughters of the wealthy and powerful but for everyone. Every child is capable of learning and every child WANTS to learn.  WE just need to provide the right stimuli for that to happen.  We need to find the right problems to solve so that they grow in their ability to relate what they learn from their daily living.