Another vote for the 'Love of Learning'

Andy, the founder of PSCS recently sent this article to a group.

Dorothy Rich captures the purpose of education with, " The purpose – the end of education and of all schooling – is to develop and sustain a student's love of learning for life, long after school doors close."

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By Dorothy Rich
Special to The Spokesman-Review
September 22, 2007

Call me old-fashioned, but I miss discussion about school goals that included the words, "Love of Learning." I miss the expectation that schools will broaden children's experience and actually work to educate, and not just school, a child.

I know the words used about schools today. The usual ones are "testing," "standards" and "accountability." I hope these will be useful in educating children. We don't know yet. In any event, we can't forget that they are at best just a means to an end, not the true goal of education itself.

The purpose – the end of education and of all schooling – is to develop and sustain a student's love of learning for life, long after school doors close.

When I ask parents about the best education they want for their children, answers from the United States and around the world are very similar. Parents want an education that builds children's capacities for hard work, for responsibility, curiosity, eagerness to learn, self-discipline, sensitivity to others, kindness. Academic skills are needed, but they are not enough.

Studies about 21st-century needs report that the desire to learn, the ability to function creatively, the capacity to concentrate, the motivation do well and, above all, the self-discipline to keep on learning are the attributes our children will need most. These are the true new basics.

Schools can't do everything, no matter how good they are. I saw this sign on a wall recently and it struck home with me: "Children don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care."

Schools have gotten out of balance, out of whack. The heavy emphasis on reading and math, mandated by officials who may not know enough about education, makes it almost impossible to provide a curriculum that includes what educated children of this century need — critical and imaginative thinking, a sense of history and the world.

Most children, rich and poor, come into the early school grades with shining faces and enormous curiosity.

They love learning. Then, visit a fifth grade. The contrast is startling. Of course, some of this is adolescence, but it's more than that. The kids have lost their original love of learning. And this can be more dangerous for real education than low test scores.

A really modern education has got to find ways to co-mingle the current drive for basic skills with the critical need for our students not to outgrow their creativity and desire to keep on learning.

Dorothy Rich is founder and president of the nonprofit Home and School Institute, MegaSkills Education Center in Washington. www.megaskillshsi.org