Helping properly is tricky business. Parents and teachers can get distracted as a child fails to measure up to the requirements of the environment. We evaluate performance, analyze behavior, diagnose disabilities, and design remediation in our efforts to address problems. This is often necessary. Helping them see and master the requirements of the environment strengthens their ability to guide themselves on their journey. But we mustn’t take our eye off the ball.
If education is leading a person’s genius out into the world to function effectively and gracefully within it, our children need to be noticed more and analyzed less—more delighted in than worried over. Our most important role is to believe in the child’s genius, and to study it with our hearts.
From the Principal’s Office: Lessons on Learning, Life, and Parenting is published bi-monthly. Each column is written by Rick Ackerly, a distinguished educator with thirty years experience in middle and elementary school education, who is currently the Head of the Children’s Day School in San Francisco.
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