Expressive Education

We spend years telling our students to keep quiet. And then throw them into the world and tell them to ‘speak out’ against injustice.
But are shocked when they can't!

Education should be expressive: sometimes we need to allow our students express themselves, then we’ll be able to know who they really are and curb the excesses! Not necessarily turning them ‘good’ by making them ‘hold their lips’ especially when a person who does not like them is writing names of noise maker.

And where did we get this notion that education was created to be about quiet learning? It does not even fits us as Nigerians because we are loud people. ?

The average Nigerian grows up as an individual seeking to be the best he can be(based on the definition given him), instead of being part of a collaborative group of people seeking to be the best they can be and offering the best to their community or country!

Most often than not, we make the students see ‘being the best student’ as ‘keeping quiet always.’
But the reality is it’s the ‘noise makers’ who actually changes the world.

And also as teachers, we don't help by being quick to identify and praise the intelligent ones and even quicker to write off anyone we think is stupid or slow.
I know it can be frustrating (I’ve been there too) but we need to see every single student and know that everyone is unique in their way of learning and their pace of learning and their particular areas of intelligence especially. And we need to give everyone an opportunity to understand that they are innately intelligent and that they excel in particular areas.
Rather than being #pessimistic, we can choose to be #optimistic over that child.

Inspired from reading ‘’How Intelligence Kills’’

Hammed S.K.

Kaynasian

Kaynasian (Kayode Hammed) is a Mathematics teacher. He teaches mostlyK-12

students. He is from Nigeria.