For the Love of Learning

I remember the day I fell in love with learning. I was sitting in my History of the Far East class, I was in seventh grade. It was the mid 1970’s, and while my friends were just discovering disco, big hair and scrunchy socks, I was learning about Mao Tse Tung and a country steeped in secret culture and tradition. The teacher, a quirky little man named Mr. Sykes, would push his bad comb-over out of his eyes, pause for just a moment and then dive into his adventures at The Great Wall China or tell us about being detained on the border between North and South Korea. He relived these memories with passion and I couldn’t get enough. I would go home at night and read of long-dead dictators, countries of exotic landscapes and customs of people foreign to me. I felt with each new bit of knowledge I learned, I was growing in an unexplainable way. What I now know was that I was experiencing the thrill of becoming educated. My mind was opened by the knowledge and teaching of the instructor, instead of just being packed with dates and facts needed to prepare for the almighty end-of-grade tests. Learning, not test preparation, should be the focus for every child that enters school.

Education is about finding joy in learning. From the time a child learns to say the word why, life becomes about learning. Children enter kindergarten with a hunger to discover knowledge. Everything from identifying colors to finding their own way to the bathroom is an accomplishment and adventure. The more this is nurtured and rewarded, the more they seek. Some of my best memories when I was young were being read to in school. There was always something I didn’t know and I was anxious to go home and share with my parents my new-found information. Before long I learned to read myself, and the learning carried on at breakneck speed. I waited excitedly upon the arrival of third grade where I would get to learn how to write in cursive and do multiplication. Each grade brought a promise of new things. All my friends agreed with me that sixth grade would be the best because we got to play the Oregon Trail that year – even though we weren’t sure just what that was.

And we learned. We could do long division, we could write a basic essay, we knew our presidents and we could find France on a map. We knew we had to learn this because we were expected to know it. Our parents spoke of these things matter-of-factly and the same would be expected of us when we grew up. We learned because knowing was the purpose of our education. We didn’t worry about our success depending on bubble sheets we had to complete at a proficient rating of 75% or better. Teachers were allowed to tell us stories, create complex models with apples, straws and pipe cleaners. They provided us with more than just dates, facts and formulas. They educated us.

I believe the educational system has lost focus on what it means to truly educated. Accountability through test scores, while providing great data on paper, is doing little to inspire the minds of children. Let our teachers teach. Let them tell us about the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef or the romping adventures of The Odyssey. Every teacher should have the chance to inspire a mind as Mr. Sykes did for me so many years ago. That is the reward of education that benefits us all.