Student

Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.

~Robert M. Hutchins

• • Today's students demand so much more than in the past. Schools are often much more than a place to learn curricula. Due to unstable social, economical, emotional and unpredictable situations in the home, schools can be the place students come for safe shelter, security, nutrition and nurturing.

  • Students today need to be empowered to learn. This means we must teach them how to learn. With the vast amounts of information accessible to the average citizen, it is important that we also teach how to seek the needed information to learn and make careful decisions.

  • Students do need to be held accountable for their learning and their behavior. Students should be assessed on a regular basis for their knowledge. Students need to also be rewarded as well as disciplined for their behavior.

  • One of the most important skills for students of the future is communication. To be successful in a world filled with so much information, a person needs to be capable of clearly communicating his/her thoughts.

  • Students are not just the little people that come into the school building every day, everyone is a student if they wish to take part in the world around them. Administrators, teachers, secretaries, custodians, bus drivers and yes the little people we call students are all learners, therefore students within our schools.

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

~Eric Hoffer