Wings to fly with

The wings of Imagination, Knowledge, and Practice, these are the wings for my child, and I wish that the school helped me in providing these.
 
Imagination
I am not sure that anything has changed within the past century or so in our schools in terms of recognizing, celebrating, and encouraging the human imagination. Do you remember the works of Hans Christian Andersen and Beatrix Potter? The creator of the most exquisite fairy tales and the narrator of Peter Rabbit are two examples of how imagination is either suppressed in school (Andersen), or is allowed to thrive outside school (Potter). Hans Christian Andersen recollected that his years in school were the darkest in his life, and that the teachers discouraged him from writing, causing him to enter a state of depression. Beatrix Potter, on the other hand, happily stated, “Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.” Can you imagine the world without Andersen’s Little Ida’s Flowers? Or without Potter’s Peter Rabbit being chased by Mr. McGregor?  
Today schools are still imagination-stifling institutions. In addition, schools physically restrict children. Have you read about the “isolation rooms” in our U.S. schools? But it seems that this is OK, because in such rooms “…a child isn't locked away and isolated; an adult must stand outside the door and watch the child though a window.” Yep, exactly like in a prison or a zoo. 

Knowledge
Our schools fill the young brains with irrelevant to life information. As the knowledge of humanity increases, we should remember that the human brain does not evolve in a way to accommodate all additional new knowledge. We also need to leave some breathing space for curiosity and allow the children to ask and look for information that they are excited about. Otherwise, how would we know what each kid is good at? The solution is to curate the information that is currently offered. The best teachers should be distinguished by a special title of “Curator of knowledge”.
 
Practice
Practice makes perfect, right? Benjamin Franklin said, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” In medical schools, students are presented with simulations of real-life situations and patients. In a similar way we should encourage our children to explore different professions – through simulations and apprenticeships. After middle school, we could introduce rotation apprenticeships that allow students to explore several fields of interest. 

And yes, I agree with Mr. Money Mustache: there should be a red button in the school hallways and everyone should be allowed to spill the music by pressing the button. We should take equal care of both the brain activity and physical activity of our kids. Let the children move, play, dance, and daydream! They spend most of their waking hours at school. If we steal these hours from the children we will cripple them – physically and emotionally, and they will never fly.