Education is more than what you’re told …

Every year, I usually share a “back to school” blog post to help parents remember that “going to school” isn’t as easy as we adults often try to make it out to be.

One lesson your children will tend to take to naturally, or will learn the hard way, is that real education is much more than just what they’re told by their teachers.

Some will sense that right away as they struggle with fear and anxiety of making new friends among hundreds or a even a thousand or two other students navigating the school halls, not just in search of their next classroom, but where and how they fit into this big ‘ol world.

Your kids will learn that being aware of the people and things around them are part of what they will learn from. Judith Swanson shared a story in Reader’s Digest that captures this lesson of the value of paying attention to what’s around us …

From the day we entered the ninth-grade health class, one blackboard was covered with the names and locations of the major bones and muscles of the human body. The diagram stayed on the board throughout the term, although the teacher never referred to it. The day of the final exam, we came to class to find the board wiped clean. The sole test question was: “Name and locate every major bone and muscle in the human body.” The class protested in unison: “We never studied that!” “That’s no excuse,” said the teacher. “The information was there for months.” After we struggled with the test for a while, he collected the papers and tore them up. “Always remember,” he told us, “that education is more than just learning what you are told.”

People have long understood that we learn from more than just what we’re told. Moses encouraged parents to make all of life a curriculum for teaching their children about God …

“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,” Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

One thing parents can do to help their children excel in their education is learn to be aware of what and who is around them; take notice of your environment and the people in it. Those observations often hold answers to questions and opportunities that will eventually come their way.

I still remember in my high school journalism class when my teacher asked all of his students if they thought they were the kind of people who paid attention to their environment. Knowing that taking note of an environment was an important skill for a journalist, we all insisted we were observant people. That’s when our teacher instructed us to close our eyes and began to quiz us about the classroom we had already spent many hours in. Where was the nearest electrical outlet? what kind of lighting was in the room? How many rows of desks were there? What color shirt was he wearing? And so on …

Most of us performed much more poorly than we thought we would.

Our teacher taught us the priceless value of observation for a journalist.

That lesson served me well over the years in various ways, and became all the more important as I studied to become a clinical therapist. Details about people and their environments would provide a treasure of clues into the lives of clinical clients.

Education is much, much more than just what we’re told, it’s a whole person, full sensory experience! The more you can help your children understand that as they begin a new year in their educational journeys, the better prepared they will be to make the most of their experiences.

Scotty