To the Editor:

In my last letter I wanted to focus on student issues that continue to be ignored. Our education leaders are entrusted every year to make important critical decisions that will impact our students’ future ability to prepare their minds as they navigate this complex social environment. Many parents who went through school still believe that their children must accept the same “learning socialization.” It’s necessary to attain their school diploma in preparation for entrance into college.

Since this is how the current education system operates, it’s a take or leave it situation.

Bright students tend to perform well because they have the learning capacity to study, to memorize, and to attain high test grades. Then there are [other] students who struggle possibly to their inability to understand why they have to spend so much time studying information that they will never use and that they will forget. Many very successful individuals left school. They chose to liberate themselves from formal education and to use their minds to pursue their ambitions. But something unusual happens to these individuals. They develop a unique curiosity to learn information, to develop growth skills, and to achieve intended goals.

Some of the great minds like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein avoided schooling but they developed remarkable talents. Einstein admitted that imagination was more important than knowledge. Leonardo had little formal schooling but he devoted his time learning by observing and documenting what he learned. While these men were exceptional talents, they put great importance in challenging the existing professional mindsets and sought to think in a different direction. They sought to develop their most important human resource, their “ability to think” so as to develop their minds to achieve their successes.

I have had the opportunity to lecture internationally about the importance of developing this ability to think because I am convinced that developing this mental process opens our minds to generate new information that previously was not apparent. Dr Carol Dweck of Stanford University published a study supporting the importance of nurturing “growth mindsets” over the “established mindsets” that characterize the current education models. Dr Dweck’s study should be required reading for every parent who is concerned about current curriculum and instruction.

I believe that developing higher level mental skills and abilities are critical since they can impact their children’s destiny. But schools are designed to stress information content over “common sense” abilities. While formal schooling serves a purpose, it seems unwilling to think out of the box and consider the real critical survival skills that children need to figure things out in life.

Dr Rudy Magnan

Sandy Hook