My 5th Grader’s Surprising Choice for Schooling this Year…..

Have you ever watched a cat shift its ears like furry radar dishes, surveying the terrain, all the while calmly relaxing and purring? My brain was like that cat; my awareness was a due to a radar-like brain function that I was not particularly keen on desensitizing. I would prefer to alter my environment, than alter that perfectly operating function in my brain.

Pressure has no place in a learning environment. It is counter to the goal, in fact. Pressure creates cortisol rushes that burn through healthy brain networks and, left uncorrected, the stimulation can create new cortisol pathways that actual seek to fill themselves again and again in an addictive cycle. Think of a child sitting on the edge of his seat, neck craned, eyes bugged out, peering at a video game screen, for example. That looks like a cortisol rush unfolding to me. Video games can do it, and so can crowded, noisy, or distracting atmospheres wherein a child is expected to perform.

The “No Child Left Behind” Paradox

Today’s kids are not failing the academic standards – the academic standards are failing our kids! “No Child Left Behind” has inadvertently placed undue emphasis on elements that have nothing to do with academic success. The entire system has instead created a generation of button-pushers who lack critical thinking skills as well as the emotional and social intelligence to get their needs met independently. We have to take another critical look at this system before we churn out yet another generation of unmotivated, unskilled, and incapable graduates.