{"id":271335,"date":"2025-02-19T14:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T14:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/19\/what-should-a-school-do-teachthought\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:09:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:09:19","slug":"what-should-a-school-do-teachthought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/19\/what-should-a-school-do-teachthought\/","title":{"rendered":"What Should A School Do? \u2013 TeachThought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\">\n                <\/aside>\n<p>            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" alt=\"What Should A School Do\" class=\"wp-image-75619 perfmatters-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/What-Should-A-School-Do.png\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/What-Should-A-School-Do.png\" alt=\"What Should A School Do\" class=\"wp-image-75619\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>I. Human beings are capable of extraordinary joy and extraordinary suffering.<\/p>\n<p>II. Suffering is inherent in the human condition and is not entirely correctable.<\/p>\n<p>III. Suffering that occurs as a kind of product\u2013something occurring by design\u2013is, however, correctable.<\/p>\n<p>IV.\u00a0Many of the issues that cause suffering do, in fact, occur \u2018by design\u2019 and are thus correctable.<\/p>\n<p>V. Identifying and prioritizing these \u2018issues\u2019 is the work of a culture and its human infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>VI. This will not happen automatically, nor without great effort, affection, patience, and a willingness to not reach for \u2018quick solutions.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>VII. The ability to prioritize and confront and begin to correct these \u2018issues\u2019 (a purposely vague word that is general enough to convey the premise without it being necessary to actually \u2018pick\u2019 and frame issues [yet]) comes from the ability to empathize consistently, connect meaningfully, and think critically, rationally, and with intellectual care and human affection.<\/p>\n<p>VIII. As a culture, one of our primary mechanisms for producing a citizenry <em>capable of<\/em> and <em>tending to<\/em> \u201cthink critically, rationally, and with intellectual care and human affection\u201d is \u2018school.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>IX. While this is obviously subjective and certainly at the very least arguable, by the overwhelmingly vast majority of measures (the health of our environment a notable exception), the \u2018world\u2019 is better today than it\u2019s ever been. (Read <em><em>Enlightenment Now<\/em>: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress<\/em> by Steven Pinker, for reference.) <\/p>\n<p>X. Two (of many) possibilities: that school \u2018works\u2019 and is in large part responsible for these improvements or these improvements have come in lieu of school and its relative efficacy.<\/p>\n<p>XI. Either way, it likely doesn\u2019t need proving that though teachers work harder than ever in (and out of) the classroom, the fundamental design of our tools of educating\u2013curriculum, assessment, and instruction, for example\u2013rarely benefit from our collective genius as a species. Put another way, school as it is can\u2019t possibly be our best thinking.<\/p>\n<p>XII. Considering the importance of knowledge (and one of its primary causes, education), if we are not aware of this relative mediocrity and fail to respond with our most careful, creative, affectionate, and critical thinking, that\u2019s an indictment of our vision. If we are, it is an indictment of our collective character.<\/p>\n<p>XIII. One powerful way to begin to address issues like climate change and our susceptibility to propaganda and Sandy Hook and bias and discrimination and war and mental health and poverty and so on\u2013so many of these both causes and effects of our capacity for joy and our capacity for suffering\u2013is through the ability and tendency to access and prioritize and use knowledge to improve our collective condition. (Critical thinking \u2013&gt; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/tag\/critical-literacy\/\">critical literacy<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>XIV. This, of course, must begin\u2013and most vigorously thrive\u2013at home and not at \u2018school.\u2019 <\/p>\n<p>XV. How, then, should we respond to this question: What role do schools play in the physical and mental well-being of their students, teachers, and surrounding communities? <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/education\/characteristics-of-a-good-school\/\">What is a \u2018good school\u2019?<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n<p><!-- HFCM by 99 Robots - Snippet # 15: Taboola Footer Feed --><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/end HFCM by 99 Robots --><br \/>\n<!-- CONTENT END 1 --><\/p>\n<div class=\"et_pb_row abfd_et_pb_row abfd-container-divi\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_column\">\n<div class=\"abfd-container\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/author\/terryheick\/\" class=\"abfd-photograph-link\">  <\/a> <\/p>\n<div class=\"abfd-details\">\n<div class=\"abfd-biography\">\n<p>Founder &amp; Director of TeachThought<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/education\/what-should-a-school-do\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] I. Human beings are capable of extraordinary joy and extraordinary suffering. II. Suffering is inherent in the human condition and is not entirely correctable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":271336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}