BFTP: All children can learn or will learn?
Sunday, March 3, 2019 at 07:32AM 
I heard the well-intentioned suggestion that educators should use as a guiding statement/principle/motto "All children will learn" rather than "All children can learn." And I've been thinking about that.
I've always thought the statement "All children can learn" to be simplistic and obvious. All children DO learn by nature since learning is a means to empowerment and it's human nature to want to become more powerful. Now they may not learn what we want to teach or in ways we like to teach, but all humans do learn.
"All children will learn" sounds rather threatening to my ears. (Say it with a German accent and imagine a military officer with riding crop and monocle saying it.) It's also pretty easy to turn the statement snarky by adding "to avoid punishment. Or "to find school irrelevant." Or "to cheat on homework." You get the idea.
How about a more aspirational statement if one feels such a thing is needed for professional motivation? My vote goes to something like "All children will love to learn." That's a statement I can get behind.
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Reader Comments (2)
How about "All children can learn what they want to learn" ?
...and would you mind me using some or all of your laws? My summer job is running a technology camp, and I always have new instructors who could use some encouragement (and laughter...)
My laws are your laws. Help yourself - all under Creative Commons license.
Doug