“So what do you do to achieve such big change goals? What are the general components of your strategy? What are your choices of organizational models? How do you turn your model into a movement for social change?” (Kanter 2005). I believe children deserve the right to freely play and make independent decisions about their development. Currently, the development in classrooms around America provide a demanding framework of knowledge to be an “intelligent” child. If a child fails within this framework they are casted aside and labeled as a struggling learner. This system of tracking has led children to be depressed learners and less children are eager or happy to learn.
Adults make choices about a child’s development daily. Children look to adults for control within the learning process. How beautiful would it be if every adult acknowledged and acted upon every teachable moment in our communities. We would be more connected as humans and isolated parts of communities would be linked through observing intentional teaching moments and acting upon them. These moments would provide an acceptance of mistakes instead of the preconceived notion that failure rules over success. How would our children react to failure if we taught generations of people that we can learn most from our short fallings. Providing an opportunity to reflect on mistakes…
How was that a mistake?
What could I do wrong to fix that mistake in the future?
What did I learn from my failure?
How could I have avoided this mistake?
As a child learns they can be exposed to the idea that critical thinking is present within success and failure. How can we incorporate failure as an opportunity of reflection in our schooling systems— not negativity and a mechanism we use to rank one’s ability?
