OPINION: Why don't more schools foster kids' natural curiosity?

Jerry Mintz is founder of the Roslyn-based Alternative Education Resource Organization.

Albany is a busy place this week. In addition to the politicians, more than 500 educators are gathering there for a conference to discuss alternatives in education.

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase "alternative schooling"? Do you think of troublemakers, misfits and uncontrollable nuisances; children disrupting a quiet and productive school atmosphere? Actually, millions of parents have chosen positive alternatives for their children, ranging from Montessori schools to home-schooling or to public alternatives, like the "school within a school" at the Wheatley School in Old Westbury.

The debate between traditional and alternative school systems is full of contrasting and sometimes dangerous viewpoints. But administrators and parents must set their differences aside and think about children. It's not radical to consider that there's more than one way to achieve the same goals.

There are two models within this issue. The first, a traditional standard that is failing, assumes that children are naturally lazy and need to be forced to learn. With this standard we have competition for grades, passing and failing, tons of homework, long school days, long school years, No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top.

But modern brain research doesn't confirm the assumption that children are naturally lazy. Rather, it confirms a second model: that children are natural learners, that the brain is naturally inquisitive.

While a little healthy competition never hurt anyone, traditional schooling is way too intense. Cramming information before the next test can halt the naturally inquisitive nature of children. And what about the role of the teacher? A teacher shouldn't just be viewed as a faceless machine, forced into spewing out random information. Rather, a teacher should be a resource, actively helping children explore and learn about everything they are interested in.

Forcing students to be in traditional school settings unleashes a major problem - for many, their interest in learning is lost. The assumption that students aren't interested in learning creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. After six or seven years of having seemingly irrelevant information pushed into their lives, their passion for learning is gone and their natural ability to learn is gradually extinguished.

There are many children who sit at the dinner table saying, "I didn't learn anything in school today," or claim they "feel sick" to get out of going to school. We don't find this surprising because, culturally, we've adapted to the belief that children hate school. But if children are natural learners and they say they hate school, maybe there's a problem with the school. Maybe something is wrong with many, many schools.

Then again, there are schools that children love - the ones supported through the second educational model. These schools fall under the general heading of alternative and progressive. They are learner-centered in their approach. I know of one in Vermont where the children voted to ban all snow days because they didn't want to miss anything.

Have you ever wondered why the government never gives statistics comparing home-schooled children to publicly educated ones? One study by the National Home Education Research Institute found that home-schooled students scored in the 88th percentile of standardized tests - contradicting the belief that alternative education lacks the intellectual benefits of traditional schools.

We need to end No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Education isn't a race; nobody tests you before you can leave the public library. Education is about enriching your mind based on personal interests and experiences. All children - all people - are natural learners.