When we hear the phrase “Back to School” at Parent-Driven Schools, it conjures up all kinds of visuals. Visuals of schedules changing and back to school shopping. Visuals of our children growing up quickly and new classes and with teachers. The media bombards us with back to school commercials and ads to help in this frenetic bombardment of our endless to do list that we must complete prior to the first day of school.
When we think of back to school at a Parent-Driven School, we think of visuals like this Macy’s commercial where the focus of the commercial is on kids being excited about going back to school; excited about learning new things and growing in their potential as grown people. The commercial is for t-shirts but what is conveyed is excitement about kids going back to school! This resonates with the values that we at Innovative Education Management hold at Parent-Driven Schools.
This back to school video is all about kids going back and summer vacation being over. In our Parent-Driven Schools, the school year is simply an extension of the summer. Learning continues taking place with a tremendous amount of choice about the type of learning and even the location of that learning. Some of our students take classes through outside vendors or are involved in co-ops. Many of our parents are completing the day-to-day teaching, partnering with their Educational Specialist (ES) and some of our parents have their children involved in online classes and outside programs to support their learning.
Businesses, media and the state all have their own view of what “school” is and their opinions influence what we think school is and should be. At Parent-Driven Schools, we believe the excitement of learning has nothing to do with being in a brick and mortar school or with being around other students seven hours a day, Monday through Friday. People, and children in particular, are hard wired to crave and seek out learning opportunities. Our current school system is creating an environment which is causing that natural wiring to short out. If we want to change the public school paradigm, we have to understand the role that the media plays in our perception of what school should be and consciously choose to create the best learning environment possible for our children.
“Back to school” is simply a continuation of the amazing learning that is taking place in homes across the state of California. Back to school means excitement about the next phase of the learning and tweaking it to make it work for each individual student. Back to school is the next step in creating life-long learners who are passionate about learning and becoming all that they can become. Are you ready for “back to school” Parent-Driven Schools style?
To know more about Parent-Driven Schools, check us out at www.ieminc.org.
