Time. It’s one thing many of us say we don’t have enough of. It’s finite, yet also unlimited. Thinking about the time that has come before today is, in many respects, incomprehensible – just as it is to think of time far into the future. Children know now... it takes years for them to understand yesterday or tomorrow. They truly live in the present moment, which is something many adults strive to do.
It can be said that time is an artificial construct. It is divided into seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries and so on. In other ways, it provides the structure we need to manage our lives. School years mean something different than fiscal years or calendar years. Within each of these “years” are other divisions of time. In schools, each year brings new classrooms and students as well as different aspects of the basic subjects taught there. Continue reading
Last week, I sat and watched the bombogenesis blow huge snowflakes across the playground at our school. Bombogenesis… really? What a surprise to learn the word is real. A Google search reveals a definition and everything that comes with any other real word; yet, it is not listed on dictionary.com. So, is it a word? 
That just about says it all. We can never know everything about everything. It is simply not possible. Schools teach a body of knowledge striving to ensure that children evolve into literate and educated adults. No matter what is included in that body of knowledge, no matter what electives students choose as they move through school, and no matter how long they are in school, they will leave not knowing things. That is the paradox of education. We are in school to learn; we leave with more knowledge than we started with and even more things we don’t know.
Learning is not a secret. Access to the facts we learn in school is open to everyone who is interested and able to learn. How do schools determine the best ways in which to present the information deemed important? How do they build student skills and improve their practice?
New math. Digital literacy. Executive function. Soft skills. None of these things were “things” when we were in school. Education seemed straightforward to us. We were taught something, memorized it, shared it on the test and moved on to the next topic. Most of us had no clue as to how rules of language, math or science came to be. We accepted what we were taught. The end. 
