.6 School as Developer of Potential

In addition to equipping students with basic knowledge and saleable skills, schools need also develop the potential of each student. That means that teachers need to watch carefully their students to learn their areas of strength and weakness, and then work with them to bring out their natural talents.

Because parents, students and society are trusting schools with the enormous responsibility to develop the potential of the next generation, schools need to be held accountable to them. In other words, when school is not working for a particular student, that students family deserves to know why. Just as the students ought to be accountable to schools (they have to do the work assigned and behave properly) and parents are accountable to schools (they have to support what the schools are having their children do), so should schools be accountable to society for how they go about educating their students. That is the only way to ensure that education is being done properly and morally.

For schools to do the very best job that they can for each student, they have to be prepared to adjust to individual uniqueness. Just as universities should be flexible when having their requirements met by alternative means, so should schools in general recognize that each student has his or her own needs and interests, and the schools ought to promote the development of those.

If school are educating the next generation, they need to do that one child at a time. And that means they have to be restructured to allow teachers to give individual response to their students. I'm talking about smaller classes, teacher aids and whatever else needs to be done to ensure that the students unique educational needs and interests are met.

 

How do schools develop the potential of students?
Mrs. Cherry teaches fifth grade. All of her students are with her for the majority of the day, and she teaches them all of the core subject areas. She notices that one student in her class, Justin, is very bright in mathematics and cannot do well in social studies or language arts no matter what he tries. Anything related to mathematics he will get an A on with no problem, but he does not write well for his level. How can Mrs. Cherry help Justin reach his goals for fifth grade performance so that he will not have to be held back?