A School Isn't About Teaching Subjects, It's About Teaching Children
A school is a sacred place. It reveres every child as a being of infinite worth and dignity, whatever his or her ability.
A school is about teaching children the skills they need to prevail in a world that makes it difficult to keep one's bearings.
It is about helping them develop belief in themselves and instilling trust in their own judgment to think for themselves.
It is about having them discover and appreciate the different cultures of the past and present, with their different ways of viewing the world, their different beliefs and values, their different ways of being human; and that these cultures may be able to teach us important things about ourselves that we, in our blindness, might never discern.
It is about suggesting that these beliefs and values are different, not better or worse, but different from those of their own; and that they can only be understood within their own time and place, as later generations will hopefully judge us as we were given the light to live our lives according to the truth as we saw it.
A school is a sanctuary where children can be put in touch with their inner selves to lay the foundations for a richer, deeper, and more meaningful existence.
It is a place where they are encouraged to question their assumptions and discover that their truths may or may not be shared by others.
It is where they can discover that the world is a much bigger place than their little corner of it; realize that what is, need not necessarily be; and that things can be changed if they have the courage to do so.
A school is not about teaching subjects, but about teaching children subjects.
Therein lies the whole art of teaching, and everything else is dust and ashes.
A school takes students from wherever it finds them and moves them forward as far as it can.
It provides an education that is not about possessing the "answers," but understanding the magnitude of the questions.
It creates an environment in which education is not learning more and more arguments about why one is right, but rather attaining more detachment from oneself to see the world in a broader perspective.
It endeavors to train each student to think, read, and write critically in order to think A School Isn't About Teaching Subjects, It's About Teaching Children | Frank Breslin: