My EKS

A friend asked me recently if my daughter, who is is home-schooling my grandchildren, was following the TEKS, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, which are the state standards for what students should know and be able to do at the different grade levels. I told my friend, "No, she isn't," and that I didn't follow the TEKS back when I home-schooled my kids either, and it didn't hurt them a bit.

I know the TEKS were written to create a standard of learning in schools across the state, but it's also tied the hands of teachers who have to cram in all of the many TEKS in their respective subjects, including writing lesson plans that document what part of the TEKS every lesson is actually teaching. If some students don't grasp a concept, the teacher has very little time to stop and make sure that mastery takes place-- because they have to cover all of the TEKS within a limited amount of time, so there is even less time for in-depth, sear-it-on-the-brain learning.

A lot of my education growing up involved memorizing something temporarily for a grade, or turning in assignments for grades, and then promptly forgetting much of it. Good grades, other than my only D in Chemistry, came easy for me in the 1st-12th grades, but I don't remember too many classes really sparking an interest in learning or giving me a good understanding of why I was learning all of that stuff. I can count on one hand the teachers and classes that really challenged me, and I remember very few classes that forced me to make the connection that school was preparing me for life. I just thought it was just this necessary millstone around my neck that I had to endure before I got out and really started living. And I still see this attitude over and over again in so many students in school today. The light comes on after they get out of school, sometimes years after, and usually when they run smack dab into their educational shortcomings.

One of the most important things my children learned before they went to public school was to take responsibility for their learning. They knew how to read directions and how to dig something out of the textbook, whether the teacher was teaching or not. They didn't have to wait for the teacher to spoon-feed them.

So no, my children weren't exposed to the TEKS until they hit seventh grade, but they still went to the tops of their respective classes when they entered public school. And I wasn't that great of a homeschool teacher. I'm just saying that the TEKS aren't the end-all when it comes to preparing children for life. I think the education world tends to complicate the process of teaching and learning. It speaks a language few understand outside of the education environment. Its requirements tend to run kids through the education system like cattle in chutes, hoping they catch what they're supposed to catch as they are prodded along the way. And once they've graduated, no one bothers to look and see if the TEKS actually took or not.

It's not that the TEKS are bad, it's that the students don't have the right motivation and mindset to learn, TEKS or no TEKS.

As for my EKS for life, I believe the following (and they are in no particular order of priority):

• Kids need to know how to communicate well-- reading, writing, speaking, listening, and understanding.
• Kids need to know how to find good sources for information they are seeking; they need to be able to evaluate that information-- to recognize propaganda and biased information versus the truth; they need to know how to check a source for trustworthiness.
• Kids need to know history well enough to not make the mistakes of the past; that the source for history isn't learned through Hollywood or groups with a biased agenda to change it. 
• Kids need to learn about our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and to learn how important it is to defend those rights.
• Kids need to know how government works, and that they are an important part in making their communities, states and country function well. 
• Kids need to learn to be contributing, self-reliant members of our society, and that they are responsible for their family's care-- the old and the young.
• Kids need to know math well enough to survive and thrive in whatever field they choose, and especially in managing their personal lives.  
• Kids need to know how natural science works, and that we are the caretakers of this extraordinary planet on which we live.
• Kids need to know how to use technology well and wisely.
• Kids need to learn compassion and charity for those less fortunate than themselves.
• Kids need to learn to respect those who are different from themselves, and that our freedom defends those differences.
• Kids need to learn good character, especially honesty, kindness, courage, dependability, perseverance, how to work hard, gratefulness, generosity, patience, & self-control.
• Kids need to learn responsibility from an early age, and that it's okay to make mistakes, but it's not okay to not learn from them. 
• Kids need to be exposed to not only physical sports and activities that they may or may not continue to participate in after school, but especially to the arts-- music, art, drama, etc.-- that actually opens their minds to creativity and enhances learning in other areas. 
• Kids need to know that they are of great worth, and they have a purpose for being here.
• And it was important to me for my Kids to know their Creator personally and to learn about Him and his Word, that this place didn't happen by chance, and that there is so much more to life than meets the eye.

I don't want to write myself a long and strict list of guidelines I'm bound to follow in order to achieve these EKS because that limits learning-- like a really tight corset limits breathing. Okay, bad analogy. What about-- learning is limited because the TEKS and the STAAR test are just two of five plates every teacher is required to juggle every day in their job, and only one of those plates involves actual teaching...

Okay, maybe the corset comparison is easier to understand. It's not that teachers aren't working hard enough-- they're working so hard, and the expectations and stress is so overwhelming at times that it's driving many of them out of the field. But the TEKS is only one of many corsets that the teachers are strictly bound to follow, and they aren't allowed the freedom and time to teach their students-- all of which are individuals with different strengths and weaknesses and varying abilities-- the best possible ways they know how. And that may or  may not always follow the detailed TEKS or its timetable.