In the education world, we often feel crippled by the common core and high stakes testing. Without meaning to do so, we are teaching to the test with kill and drill tactics. This kind of education leaves me void of joy and passion. I feel drained, exhausted, and unmotivated when the focus is only on test scores. I am a firm believer that teachers who teach with passion and motivate children to love learning will perform well on the end of the year test. I've seen it firsthand. By infusing creativity in our teaching and daily classroom practices, we are teaching children to become free thinkers, problem solvers, and navigators of an unknown world. We are also teaching them to be children and to love life and the beauty that it holds when looked at through a different lens. That is equally as important to me as producing top performers.
This print will hang in my classroom as long as I teach to remind me that we are in the business of helping children survive and experience the joys of childhood. It was given to me by an artist named Kathleen Taylor at the Dogwood Festival in Atlanta after she learned that I was a first grade teacher! I will forever treasure these words!
Check out more of Kathleen Taylor's artwork here:
Kathleen's Facebook Wall
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