Learning is a life-long venture, however, in my years of teaching, I happened to notice that this was not the consensus among students. Learning was a red flag, something to encourage a sigh, eye roll, or defiance. To top it off, these students sometimes thought they were “dumb” - but that was not ever the case. However, because they did not fit into the school system, they lacked confidence in themselves.

The philosophy I have come to adopt from my personal educational experiences, combined with teaching various age groups and my own children, is an interest led approach.

We are all interested in something. Whether it be video games, animals, building, nature, or anything else! Each one of these topics can involve every core subject. There is science and art to everything. Every topic has a history. There are finances or statistics to everything. Nearly everything is impacted by the government. One can read and write about anything - and with technology constantly growing, there are new avenues for this all of the time!

Surrounding interests with our core subjects and research not only encourages our youth to learn about things they are passionate about, but it helps them gain skills and critical thinking techniques that can be applied to any topic. With the rise of social media and fake news, it’s more important than ever to encourage our youth to continually ask questions and investigate.