Part of that includes instilling in students an intellectual curiosity, receptivity to learning through genuine understanding, and definitions of professional success that are motivated by positive aspirations rather than by overcompensation impulses triggered by negative assumptions, messages, or early experiences. In addition to ensuring basic literacy and computational skills required by adults in society, modern primary education must dedicate itself to producing graduates who have discovered their greatest intellectual abilities and developed a genuine interest in a specific academic and/or vocational application of those aptitudes and interests in a manner most conducive to their long-term fulfillment and (ideally) to their optimal benefit to their families and communities in adulthood.
Toward that end, modern education must adapt to the wealth of empirical evidence that traditional methodologies (such as passive lecture and rote memorization, in particular) are comparatively ineffective at achieving the highest goals of education in society. Specifically, as society becomes ever more dependant on advanced technology, the field of Science becomes increasingly important. Especially (though hardly exclusively) in the sciences, academic interest and subject matter retention is tremendously increased by methodologies that incorporate active learning and inquiry-based approaches, instead. Granted, economic realities of publicly-funded education often limit the availability of the necessary material of some of the newest and most advanced educational programs available on the open market. Therefore, teaching methods and materials and to deemphasize passive lecture- based learning as well as rote memorization and drilling. That narrow focus in primary and secondary education has the effect of extinguishing any genuine intellectual curiosity and interest of a substantial percentage of students in the first stages of their educational careers. Furthermore, the traditional approach also emphasizes a very narrow set of intellectual areas and skills whose relative value is no longer an appropriate area of (nearly) exclusive attention in the primary school years.
To the extent I am fortunate enough to be able to apply my personal philosophy of education in my career, I would hope that as many of my students as possible will consider my classes to have generated their initial interest in their academic pursuits.
Similarly, I hope to have assisted as many of my students as possible to discover their greatest academic, intellectual, and inner strengths necessary to achieve goals consistent with a happy and fulfilling adult life after the conclusion of their educational experiences.
