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As I think about moving from the mostly negative responses for the Education, Schools, Students columns to the more positive comments on Students, Inquiry and Science; I am struck by the idea that I tend to think of Education as a formal process that lasts for 12 years by law and an infinite number of years thereafter. Teachers have taken the infinite pathway and in that choice, one could logically say that “education” has positive connotations for teachers. So I went back and looked at the words listed under education and found only one word with a possible negative connotation, “stress” and actually I agree that teaching does involve stress if you are striving to reach all your students.

When commenting about schools, we can imagine that teachers have a great deal to say about how schools can be made better and that these thoughts have settled deep into our unconscious. Actually the same can be said of students. Teachers want to change quite a few things about students and are never 100% successful so yes, we do bury those thoughts as well.

How do we change our formed unconscious thoughts, beliefs, or hopes? It seems that many “experts” have written books or appeared on Public Television to give us the keys to our unconscious. I for one am willing to try but not sure of the attempt. I hold “Education” of high value. I consider schools to be buildings but the community within is of great importance to achieve success. Students are the products and as with everything the product reflects the developer. I own that process and believe that I can always and forever improve the product.