Becoming Brilliant

       

Becoming Brilliant

Kindergarten students are eager. They want to learn. They want to do. With shining eyes and earnest expressions, they dive into learning. Their hands are always waving and their voices and fingers are always active.

Young children love working together, sharing their ideas, learning new things, expressing their opinions, building and breaking things, and expressing joy, sadness, fear or anger. Their feelings are evident on their faces. They live life to the fullest. 

In Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children, Roberta Michnick Golenkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek detail six key skills necessary for success in today’s workforce: collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creativity, and confidence. Traditionally, education has focused on retaining content, that is, learning information. Today, children must learn to sort through mountains of information and to prioritize, connect, combine, and use it to solve problems in unique ways.

Successful people must be flexible, personable, and collaborative. Instead of “encyclopedias of facts,” professionals must be “information sifters,” accessing information to solve problems. Golenkodff and Hirsh-Pasek write that kindergarten students who come to school “socially-competent and did such things as sharing, cooperating, or helping other kids are more likely to attain higher education and well-paying jobs than those who are less socially-competent.”

One busy day, my kindergarten students were cutting out Winnie-the-Pooh paper dolls. Many pulled at my sleeves asking me to help them cut. Cutting is challenging for many five-year-olds. One little boy worked happily at his table. When I walked over to check on him, I noticed that his excess paper was intact with a perfect Pooh-shaped hole. There was no cut from the edge into the paper. He eagerly explained his unique solution to the cutting challenge. He then shared it with his table-mates helping and encouraging them patiently. 

I have kept that perfect Pooh-shaped paper and remember this student fondly. At age five, he wasn’t yet successful in the ways tests evaluate students. His “brilliance” was in envisioning new solutions, sharing his ideas, and helping his friends.  He came to school knowing how to communicate, collaborate, create, think critically and act with confidence. He was a successful person ready to became a successful student.

Parents and teachers are vital in helping children become brilliant. Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek, begin their book by asking “What if… What if we could create a world in which the educational system matched what know about how children learn?” The “What if” world is not filled with flash cards but with children eagerly working together to solve problems. In the traditional school world, some are left behind but in the “What if” world, every student is successful. Which world do you want for your children? 

(This is the first in a series of articles inspired by Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D. and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D. I encourage you to read it.)