As a parent, you are right there for all the changes your child goes through so are less able to see the process that causes the loss of the uniqueness that so described who they are. As a grandparent, I stand off at a distance as more of an observer and more clearly see it happen.
It is not so gradually beaten out of them when they enter school, it is a directed management effort to standardize them. Then when we see lives falling apart in midlife called the midlife crisis if we look close enough we see that what defines that mental state of chaos is that loss of personal uniqueness as a child and the desire to get it back.
We all want our children to succeed but this competition to succeed in some test-based format absolutely no longer works. Schooling must change to encourage the individual and not to throw them all into the same race sorted and resorted by the ability to compete within some fixed time frame.
If wanting to learn more I suggest “From Reopen to Reinvent” by Michael Horn. I get so frustrated with people who want K12 to change but will not educate themselves on change to what.
Rob Wood
