A note that a teacher had written for my son fell out of his school bag.\u00a0 He is nine years old.\u00a0 The note, on a little post-it, reads: \u201cwhy is it that you never seem to get finished?\u201d The teacher is trying to get my son to work more quickly.\u00a0 Quicker so that he has something to hand in before moving on to the next task.\u00a0 Quicker so that the whole class can transition to the next activity, quicker so that he does not get little notes like these any more.\u00a0 This encouragement has been effective in his written work and his maths but with multilayered or creative work he has had real trouble.\u00a0 There the answer to the specific question is that he does not get finished because he does not have enough time.\u00a0 And he cannot draw and conceive faster than he does and to force him to be finished sooner leads him to the conclusion that he cannot do the work.<\/p>\n
All children are put through this process and a system that works in this way, that does not give enough time for tasks to be completed, does not teach completion.\u00a0 Does not support completion.\u00a0 Does not see completion as valuable.\u00a0 There is another aspect to completion, another reason why it is valuable to allow a human to find their own way to the end of a task; because it allows the human to learn to think for themselves.\u00a0 Within the university environment I have heard a little in the way of complaints that students cannot think for themselves, that they have been spoon-fed. \u00a0What if they are hurried to conclusions using well trodden paths in order to do things quickly from a young age; what if that stunts their ability to take their time?<\/p>\n
Take their<\/em> time; make their<\/em> own decisions and choices.<\/p>\n If I have thought through, worked through, a particular process a few times and then I need to do it quickly, I will know even know how to speed things up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A note that a teacher had written for my son fell out of his school bag.\u00a0 He is nine years old.\u00a0 The note, on a little post-it, reads: \u201cwhy is it that you never seem to get finished?\u201d The teacher is trying to get my son to work more quickly.\u00a0 Quicker so that he has … Continue reading Take Your Time<\/span>