Reading, Writing, ‘Rithmetic….and Responsibility
Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I listen to BBC radio. It’s on my local NPR station from 2 am until 5 (I know, crazy huh?). Last week I sat upright listening to a piece about the horrific journey some kids in Zimbabwe make to get a top notch education in Johannesburg. They have to cross a river infested with alligators, find their way through barbed wire at the border of Johannesburg, and surrender everything they have-everything- to armed robbers. It sounds more like a Hollywood spellbinder, but it was simply groups of kids who wanted the best education available to them.
I began to think. What would American children do to get the superior education they often take for granted? How do we teach about freedom to those who have known nothing but?
Think about education as having five links: parents, teachers, curriculum, assessment and students. We talk endlessly in educational circles about the first four, but what about kids? Do they have a responsibility to…or for anything? If so, what should it be?
