Teacher enters. Kids hyper. He calms their frantic minds to something approaching calm. He hands out 10 copies of Heat magazine, 8 of OK and 14 of Nuts. “Read these, I’ve got stuff to do.” The kids, sorry, students are stunned, joyful and the class falls into rapt star gazing silence. Fashion, football, ads, cosmetics, tits and bums are being absorbed in a hum of concentration. The teacher relaxes, leans back and flicks through his own copies of said magazines. A half hour passes.
“OK Y3B what have you just been doing?” A voice gives the obvious answer, “Skiving Sir.”
“No, you’ve been learning. That’s what learning feels like.” 30 confused faces. “What we’ve been doing this past year has not been you learning, it’s been me teaching. So, now you know what learning feels like do you want to do some more?” With the prospect of swapping mags and carrying on they joyfully agree.
“OK so what do you want, how do you want your life to be? What are your dreams?” The teacher gets many suggestions. He chooses one and asks for more detail. “So what will you need to learn to make that happen?” 30 brains balk at trying to make the transition from easy dreaming to challenging reality. They ache at the thought of it.
“Come on, you’ve just experienced learning, how absorbing and fun it is.” They reluctantly agree on some practical necessities if one is to become a film director or whatever.
“OK, now you learn it and I’ll help you if you need it.”
The teacher sits back and reads a book.
I find it interesting that the one skill all youngsters are outstanding at is typing, a skill that is not taught. Also that schools are quite toxic places.
The brain in a sense breaths in information through a mouth of curiosity driven by a need to know. Schools nowadays are the equivalent of a single teacher trying to practice artificial resuscitation on 30 patients all at the same time who see no point in breathing. The patients are dieing and the teachers are worn out.
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