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I am passionate about student-centered education and
student-centered culture. My dream school is one where you see students at the
heart of every activity ----students giving announcements, students planning
and leading classroom activities, students involved in decision-making, a
garden growing confident, trustworthy individuals. I believe when students are valued as
trustworthy and when they are empowered
by and entrusted with developmentally-appropriate responsibilities, then they
will almost always exceed our expectations.
But in order to do this, we, as the adults, have to be
willing to stay off the track. Imagine a runner in a race where the coach
instead of standing on the sidelines watching the race and cheering, is instead
standing in front of the runner, running backwards giving instructions,
encouraging, criticizing, re-directing, and essentially blocking and slowing
down the runner’s pace. The runner can’t see his destination. He can’t think to
himself about what to do; he can’t make adjustments to his pace or his path
because all he can see and hear is the person in front of him. Ultimately, we
will never know how fast and how far he could go because the coach won’t get out
of the way.
That can be true in the lives of our children. We can be
like the coach described above blocking the progress of the students we serve
when we choose to be:
- A teacher who refuses to give up control in the classroom and clings to being the center of instruction and the source of knowledge.
- A principal who sets rules and establishes a culture that tells students “You are untrustworthy and incapable of making good decisions.”
- A parent who blocks a child’s growth by doing too much for them and preventing them from experiencing struggle and failure.
There are times of “training” when our children need to hear
direction from us, when we need to be close by to closely monitor and coach.
There may even be a few occasions where a child needs us to demonstrate how to
run, but when it’s time to race, the only one on the track should be the child.
It’s his race, her journey, and we have the incredible blessing of witnessing,
coaching, and cheering from the side.
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