Everyone's normal

"Mrs. Gascoyne said they didn't want to treat me differently from everyone else in the school because then everyone would want to be treated differently and it would set a precedent." - Christopher, the teenage narrator in "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

"I can't be expected to understand how every kid's mind works."  - Our son's math teacher

The goal is to be normal. The ideal is to be normal, or as Garrison Keillor says, "above average."  We all walk around with a bell curve in our minds, with average being normal, and above average being better than normal, and below average being something we don't want to be.

In the last century, when factories provided jobs and schools prepared youth for work in the factory, being normal was perhaps a good thing.   But no one is really normal.  Normal is one point on a bell curve that measures only one thing.  Human beings are fascinatingly more complex. 

The problem is that schools try to treat everyone as normal, so they can teach one way, fail to respond to each student's unique needs, and do mass education like a factory does mass production.  It might have worked in the last century, it doesn't work now.  Because today the good jobs go to people with unique, special or outstanding skills, and the job of schools is to help each of us identify and develop our special skills.

So yes indeed, a teacher/parent/employer's job is EXACTLY to understand how each kid's mind works.  Because that is the key to that kid's future.

Comments

[Stephen Harlow]

Great to see you've got an RSS feed so I can follow your insightful writing more easily. You might be interested in the writing of Robert Paterson, who coincidently, has blogged about the school system and its fascination with the mean. I've tried to connect both your ideas on my blog. Feel free to comment.

[Robert Paterson]

Thanks Stephen for pointing me here. I have my coffee at hand and am about to dig in

[Bill & Julie]

Thanks for being here Stephen and Robert.

[lekshe]

You wrote, "So yes indeed, a teacher/parent/employer's job is EXACTLY to understand how each kid's mind works. Because that is the key to that kid's future."

This may or may not be true, but what fascinates me even more is the idea that maybe it's the KID's job to understand how her/his mind works. And the teacher to understand how their mind works. If the idea that if even two people did that, the whole class would benefit.

Who will teach us how our mind works? So much interesting work is being done to discover the answers. I hope you'll poste links to some of your favorite books or research here on the blog.

Is understanding the brain understanding the mind? Another great question--just now being fathomed by behavorial medicine and cognitive scientists.

Here's a link to a web site of Dr. B. Alan Wallace, a man who knows quite a bit about the mind, AND the brain, and a few scientists and others who participate in a prestigious international conference about those topics each year.

http://www.mindandlife.org/

[Stephen Harlow]

James Zull's The Art of Changing the Brain is an excellent introduction to how the brain works and its implications for learning. I was recommended it by Helen Barrett and I only affirm the books value. It should be required reading in every teacher education course.