Education Is Not A One Size Fits All

Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” This quote reflects not only on the kind of education back then but also modern-day education. An education where only the Math and Science geniuses are recognized by institutions, and the exceptional and talented student-artists remain in their classrooms and wait for their time to perform in intermission numbers, star in a Christmas Story production, and for some, join poster-making contests. We learn Mathematics, Science, History, and Geography every single day, while we only have a day for Music, Arts, and student club gatherings (at least in most parts of the Philippines.) I was raised in a society where people only learn in a “one size fits all” approach. It is amazing that technology has been able to advance immensely, but education – which is a fundamental need of every human being, has not. The debate on which is the best and most constructive approach to helping a child learn better has been a consistent topic for educators all over the world. Maybe the framework of the school is not just the issue, nor just the curriculum, perhaps one of the issues could also be the lack of mindset, perspective, and philosophy of some educators. Perhaps if society would not simply judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, but instead, observe how graceful and fast it could swim, perhaps the fish would be more determined and inspired to swim all over the ocean and fully discover its strengths and abilities.

As an educator who has high hopes and strives to help improve the marginalized communities in the Philippines through arts and education; a philosophy that has helped me be more grounded and passionate in what I do is progressivism. Progressivism is an educational philosophy that centers on the child or the learner and not on the teacher. The students are the primary source of curriculum development as it is their interests and passions that are being used to make a lesson effective. The teacher serves as a guide and works with the students during the experimentation process as they solve problems through observation together. In this way, the students are more encouraged to discover the world around them and will not be obliged to learn and memorize various concepts that are being taught by their teachers through standardized tests. The beauty of progressivism is that it helps students feel more comfortable and confident to learn by reminding students that mistakes help us grow as long as we acknowledge them and to be proud of their achievements whether big or small. Educators also have to encourage the children to collaborate as a group instead of competing with each other.

In preschool, I handled a kid who was first enrolled in a traditional school. In his previous school, he had a teacher that gave him a number recognition worksheet to work on which needed to be finished by the end of the day. His teacher made him feel pressured and scared by forcing him to finish his worksheets quickly. This has made him develop anxiety and have a habit of vomiting when he’s under pressure. This resulted in the child becoming more self-conscious and ashamed to attend classes. He felt that if only he had known how to answer his worksheet correctly, he would not have experienced such trauma. He was highly affected by the incident and his parents had to transfer him to a different school. It took him a while to adjust in my classroom, but shortly enough he was able to interact with his peers and teachers. I have learned that he is fascinated by cars so I designed a material for him that depicts a parking lot with 20 identical cars in different colors. He has to put all the toy cars in their proper parking spaces by matching the numbers on top of each car, as well as the numbers on the parking spaces. In less than a month, he mastered recognizing numerical symbols from one (1) to fifty (50). This example shows how effective progressivism and recognizing multiple intelligences are and how it can change the idea of education for children — that it is not a place where they are being programmed to be just followers. But rather, a place where they also have a voice and a right to express their thoughts and ideas freely.

Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences presents a strong point on how we should structure curricula and syllabi in schools. He mentioned that educators should be able to ‘individualize’ and ‘pluralize.’ To individualize, educators should get to know their students’ individual strengths and weaknesses and use them to assess how we teach. Educators also need to pluralize by teaching topics, concepts, or ideas differently.

Gardner added that when topics are taught in multiple ways, educators will reach more of their student's strengths. It is true that if educators are only focused and restricted to a single mode of teaching, chances are students will be unlikely to succeed in their classes.

Some schools in the Philippines, even here in Spain, have classroom arrangements where students are seated in rows based on their performance. If a child performs well, he or she stays in front, if not, he or she stays at the back. This is degrading enough for a child and might harm their development as an individual. All kids have different strengths, needs, skills, and goals, but why do we teach them the same idea in the same way? If we just take some time and assess our ideologies and goals as educators, we would discover the beginning of the change that we want to see. By molding students by focusing on their needs and providing a safe environment, we are building a much better, more positive, and more encouraging society that will never judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.