Unlearning the Rescue

The next instinct is to rescue. A child struggles to solve a puzzle, or stumbles, and we step in to fix it — quickly, kindly, almost automatically. But every fast correction quietly tells the child that finding out the answer was our job, not theirs. What’s the alternative strategy? Next post…

Teaching tip: when planning lessons or activities, rather than starting with an explanation, think of ways of introducing the lesson target that encourage exploration. The ISLE approach to teaching physics gives some great examples here: www.islephysics.net/philosoph… I will share some examples for the language classroom in the future posts.

Freedom isn’t permission to do nothing. Dutch educator Hans Wenke reframed Parkhurst’s first principle: freedom is the earned outcome of responsibility. That distinction matters enormously in how you design a school. The balance between freedom and responsibility is a crucial one.

Helen Parkhurst’s insight: give children real responsibility for their learning and they instinctively seek the best way to achieve it. Not a theory. Alongside her mentor, Maria Montessori, she actually watched it happen in her classroom over a century ago. No tests or exams, minimal discipline.