{"id":278828,"date":"2025-06-25T06:03:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T06:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/25\/teach-students-to-think-irrationally-2\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:07:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:07:59","slug":"teach-students-to-think-irrationally-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/25\/teach-students-to-think-irrationally-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Teach Students To Think Irrationally"},"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\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"756\" height=\"567\" src=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IMG_5921.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-39301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IMG_5921.png 756w, https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IMG_5921-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IMG_5921-370x278.png 370w, https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/IMG_5921-570x428.png 570w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 756px) 100vw, 756px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Teach Students To Think Irrationally<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>by <strong>Terry Heick<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Formal learning is a humbling thing.<\/p>\n<p>As planners, designers, executors, and general caretakers of public and private education systems, we are tasked with the insurmountable: overcome a child\u2019s natural tendency to play, rebel, and self-direct in hopes of providing them with a \u2018good education.\u2019 Reading, writing, arithmetic, etc.<\/p>\n<p>And this isn\u2019t wrong. This is good by almost any measure. Our intent is noble, our effort extraordinary, and certainly the learning of many children, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, is better than anything they might have had otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s also an unfortunate, darker side to formal learning processes\u2013especially when you crowd 800 in a school and 32 in a classroom and \u2018hold teachers accountable.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>This is a side that can be more concerned with that accountability than anything else\u2013and that means students accountable to teachers, teachers accountable to principals, \u00a0principals accountable to superintendents, superintendents accountable to state government agencies, and everyone accountable to many measures of \u2018motivation\u2019 and\/or punitive action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">See also <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/pedagogy\/student-engagement-strategies\/\">Student Engagement Strategies<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The net result can be a learning climate where\u00a0spontaneity,\u00a0curiosity, and learner self-direction are secondary to just the right \u2018research-based\u2019 literacy strategy to \u2018move kids to proficiency\u2019\u2013and a crucial loss of \u2018childlishness\u2019 of learning.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s within this context that I watched the following video by Adora Svitak, who eloquently (please tell me this child was coached, or else I am going to wish she was also more \u2018childish\u2019 herself) discusses the role of \u2018immaturity\u2019 in great accomplishments. Regarding \u2018childish\u2019 behavior and \u2018immaturity,\u2019 she explains:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen again, who\u2019s to say that certain types of irrational thinking aren\u2019t exactly what the world needs? Maybe you\u2019ve had grand plans before but stopped yourself, thinking, \u201cThat\u2019s impossible,\u201d or, \u201cThat costs too much,\u201d or, \u2018That won\u2019t benefit me.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor better or worse, we kids aren\u2019t hampered as much when it comes to thinking about reasons why not to do things. Kids can be full of inspiring aspirations and hopeful thinking. Like my wish that no one went hungry or that everything were a free kind of utopia. How many of you still dream like that and believe in the possibilities? Sometimes a knowledge of history and the past failures of utopian ideals can be a burden because you know that if everything were free, then the food stocks would become depleted and scarce and lead to chaos. On the other hand, we kids still dream about perfection.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd that\u2019s a good thing because in order to make anything a reality, you have to dream about it first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to take that argument a step further and wonder what education would be like if it were able to really lose itself in the learning, and be fully immersed in content and community. Standards? Fine. Assessment? Fine\u2013but standardize the assessment without standardizing the learning.<\/p>\n<p>What if the learning was like the child: irrational, in motion, and in love with discovery?<\/p>\n<p>You can <a href=\"https:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch?v=V-bjOJzB7LY&amp;feature=youtu.be\">view the video here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 --><\/p><\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/learning-posts\/education-should-be-more-childish\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] Teach Students To Think Irrationally by Terry Heick Formal learning is a humbling thing. As planners, designers, executors, and general caretakers of public and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":278829,"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\/278828"}],"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=278828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}