Slow education… slow parenting

Being in a hurry all the time can affect our children's life. It began 25 years ago together with “slow food” versus “fast food”. Since then, the “slow movement” has supported the idea of making our life flow slower. As a result, it has had a big influence on “slow cities”, “slow travel” or “slow home” among others. Nowadays, this way of life spreads onto education and suggests new ideas to put into practice, not only at school, but also at home.

Teaching quickly or suggesting short-term aims to reach a tough syllabus has harmful consequences for students. Children will lose interest and will get stressed, as well as teachers. For this reason, “slow education” offers more flexible and sensible methods. It is not important who is number one. Now our main aim should be how to teach and how to learn in a healthy way. Activities are meant to be stimulating, avoiding difficult academic contents for children who would rather learn new games or beneficial social abilities.

Everything begins at home. Some parents have a very strict schedule for their kids: school from nine to five, followed by sport lessons, foreign languages extra lessons, bath time, dinner time and bed time. Parents have everything sorted out, but they don’t know that they avoid their children taking their own decisions. Children need to play, discover, invent, suffer, get bored and dream. 

“Slow parenting” suggests a change in parents’ attitude:

    -easy games in gardens or parks looking for insects
    -teaching children how to enjoy learning new things
    -trust our children’s talents
    -spend more time with them, learning from each other
    -respect childhood

We hope these clues help  us  live “slow” with our daughters and sons, changing parents’ and teachers’ point of view to reach good quality of life.

English Department