Give kids a chance!

I Just watched a tedtalks video by Sir Ken Robinson, and I have got to say that he deserves such a prestigious title for he is a smart man, and not just university prof smart either.

Interestingly enough the largest statement that stuck with me from his entire speech was this :

"Shakespeare was in someone's English class".

Robinson had said this as a bit of a joke, and kept on moving, but it really remained with me. Every student that walks into our classroom has the potential to become the next Shakespeare, Einstein, or god forbid, Justin Beiber. We do not know what our students will become.... it's as simple as that. We have NO IDEA what our students will become.

Yet we are all still preparing our lessons to teach in the same way as we have learned. Math and English before social studies, social studies before music, music before drama. We teacher our students that if you excel in drama but not in math, that you are stupid. This is how our education system works. If what you excel in will not get you a stable "normal person" job than it is not of worth. And because it is not of worth, you are not of worth. Bit of a harsh reality to face from the teaching and growing that we like to imagine ourselves doing as teachers.

So how to change it? That is the bigger question. I want to believe that because I am going to teach music that I have already taken a big step in supporting the musical students in having confidence in their abilities and in themselves. But unfortunately I am also aware that when they sit in math class and cannot do their multiplication tables it is going to emphasised to them that they are not as good as the rest of the class, even though they may be the only one getting a good tone out of a recorder (or the best tone that can be produced out of a recorder anyway).

I am really feeling hopeless as I am posting this because I really do not know how I can personally change this fact. It really needs to be a whole system revolution. To allow students to embrace themselves for who they are and what they are good at is a huge task, and it will be a huge task also to change our system to allow them to do so. I hope that we can be inspired as a whole to embrace our students, to change our system, and to not squander the potential that our students hold.