The current educational system in the US was constructed almost two centuries ago to meet the needs of the industrial age. Now that our society and economy have evolved beyond that era, our schools must also be reinvented.
We can see what the future looks like in places like Mexico where one teacher fueled his low-income students to rise to the top of the nation by letting go of the reigns of teaching, to allow for child-led natural learning.
Or we can look to Finland, where they adopted this new philosophy nationwide—with outsize results.
In the 1990s, Finland pared the country’s elementary math curriculum from about 25 pages to four, reduced the school day by an hour, and focused on independence and self-directed learning based on their innate curiosity. By 2003, Finnish students had climbed from the lower rungs of international performance rankings to first place among developed nations.
(READ the featured story in Wired)
We “unschooled” our three children for the very reasons described in the article (after significant damage had already been done to their love of learning — knocked out of them by day-to-day boring lessons — especially the eldest who had reached sixth grade, and somewhat to the boy who had reached third grade.)