The Beginning
The Path
“Every stone we lay affects the course of the river” Nat Keefe.
I was raised in central Iowa where the education system is very good and work ethic is something that is ingrained into the children. I attended public schools and always enjoyed school, although mostly for the social interaction and the occasional game of dodge ball.
I was a very good student to have in class. Actually, I was too shy to get into any real trouble. But there were always certain things that I wanted to do my own way. I wasn’t interested in following everything I was told.
The first run in with authority happened within the first few days of kindergarten. I had my own way to hold a pencil which was slightly different than the way the teacher was teaching us. The teacher talked to me many times about how to hold it the ‘right way’. But I couldn’t figure out why it mattered how I did it as long as I knew how to write and could do it legibly. Isn’t it possible that there could be more than one way to hold a pencil effectively. The teacher would have never known I held it any different if she hadn’t been looking over me like a hawk. When I didn’t easily adapt to the accepted way, I was given a little rubber triangular shaped device that slid onto my pencil which was meant to force me into holding it the ‘right way’.
This attempt failed miserably on their part as I was still able to hold it my way even with the triangle shaped pencil holder. To this day, I still hold a pencil my way. It’s different than most people, but it isn’t wrong. Besides, when was the last time you hand wrote anything important. The teacher could have actually been spending time teaching me something meaningful and important. This was long before No Child Left Behind but these teachers had already taken their eye off the real goal to waste time on making each of us do things the same way.
Why must the education system start teaching kids at 5 years old that there is only one way to do things? Where is the individualism? Where is the desire to be different and express yourself? Our children are taught from day one to follow the rules and not stand out from the herd.
Even at 5 years old I was focused on a big picture. Actually a picture that was so big I still couldn’t see it yet. I always had respect from my teachers, but I also knew I was smarter than them. Let’s all stop trying to fit in and making everyone else fit in so we can create some individuality and learn creativity from others. I guarantee we could be a lot further along if we didn’t impede growth by forcing silly rules on our children.