MAKE SCHOOLING A SOCIAL PROGRAM

MAKE SCHOOL A SOCIAL PROGRAM

If your child was taken away from you at the age of six, brought up in another country, and returned to you at age 21; immature, beautiful, well built - with a beard. How would you cope? Imagine telling this “child” that this is the real world. Imagine telling them that the world owes them nothing. Imagine trying to explain to them how to live in the world they have been away from for as long as they can remember.  How successful would you be?

Yet this is what we do when we send our children to school and expect them to turn out as model citizens. Many school programs isolate students from society. Why do we isolate our kids in schools and release them at the end of 10 years into society with no idea how to; handle money, talk to the neighbors or work with people from other schools. Why do we get shocked and complain about dropouts, copouts not cut out to fit in a society from which they were left out?

In the old days, schools set children apart to prepare them for local jobs. Today society needs to give them jobs in a global world. Kids need to be in society in order to be part of it. The key may be to make learning a social and not a school program.

Allan