Preparing Our Students for Childhood

Before departing for the summer I shared with my educational community a video by Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs. The two questions she considers in the video are: Who owns the learning? and What year are you preparing your students for? No matter where one is in their journey as a professional educator or no matter what lens one uses to view the educational journey of the “students” who will be competing, collaborating and leading within our society, all of us should be contemplating these questions. All of us have unique societal roles;  educators benefit from the guidance of our parent community and our community supporters. Their roles as entrepreneurs, and members of the workforce are essential in helping us understand some of the needs our students will face in their future.

As an Educational Leader with the interests of society's youngest students front and center, I ponder these questions:

Who owns the learning?

• Choice of product and process should be a consistent part of the learning journey.
• Content should be engaging and should tap into and extend the interests of the students.
• Students should establish the norms and identity of their classroom community.
• Students need opportunities to pose and solve problems.

What year are you preparing your students for?

• As educators of elementary school students, we must acknowledge that “College or University” will look a lot different than it does now, therefore, isn’t it our job and responsibility to imagine, predict, plan for and provide diverse and unique learning opportunities that will be relevant anytime and anywhere?
• We do know that our students will face multiple challenges, will interact with a variety of people across continents, and will be expected to innovate, therefore shouldn’t we ensure that the educational journey includes creativity, collaboration, and cross-cultural understandings?
• Regardless of the year we may be preparing our students for, let’s remember that we are guiding them through their childhood. “Childhood” is a time to imagine, play, experiment and interact within the world. “Childhood” is a magical time. There is nothing more authentic, timely and satisfying than to help students discover and grow through the most marvelous learning journey of all - Childhood.

We are preparing our students for Childhood and they own their learning! It is our role as educators to guide and support them through their learning journey.