Mike starts pre k in about a month. I stole this from a longer letter posted online... You must be wondering what I expect him to learn while in your care. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and if you can get to half of it I will owe you a debt that I won’t really ever be able to repay. I’d like him to end the year a little kinder, a little more courageous, and a little more compassionate. He’s doing great now, but I know what type of competitive environment he’s headed into, and I know what that can do to people. There’s no need for him to come home crying because he can’t read as fast as the kid next to him. It would also be incredible if, in the course of all that competition, he learns perseverance, impulse control, resiliency, and how to think about thinking. I believe these skills and capacities will get him far in life, regardless of how good he is at trigonometry later. Most importantly, I need him to leave your classroom loving to learn. If that is all he walks away with, then you will have been successful, and I will sing your praises. Right now he’s a learning machine. He wants, terribly, to understand how things work and he’s quite eager to learn to read. Preserving this drive in the face of what must be tremendous pressure on you, I fear, is going to be a challenge. What I can offer is my help. If you don’t have learning centers, I can muster up some resources to have them built for you. If you need bricks for counting, glitter for painting, or boxes for building, please don’t hesitate to ask. I am in a position to be able to gather such things, and it is just as important that his classmates have the same opportunities as him, that they leave wanting to learn more and then some. Because if they don’t, we risk a world full of people who aren’t that imaginative or creative. It turns out there is research arguing we are already there and the finger points at our educational policy. Not your fault, I know…just a reality. I think we can change the world’s trajectory by raising inquisitive beings, and the place to start is in your classroom. Please let me know what I can do to support you this year. If I am around too much, am too eager to help, know that I am just making sure that my boy, and the boys and girls around him, are getting the best education they can…where education means love of learning, not memorizing disassociated facts. One more thing…please, no worksheets.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 16:13:59 +0000