It just made sense

Recently I was shared a NY Times article about poverty and education. You cannot live in Grundy Co, TN, on the Cumberland Plateau or (really) anywhere in the US and not hear about education. I've grown to be a huge fan of Mountain TOP's summer programs, and I am always looking for resources to aid us in our mission. If you are a parent, you know that summer camp isn't just about having fun. There are so many benefits to the experience beyond learning to juggle or going on a hike. All of our day camps for local youngsters have been working on incorporating quality place based education into our routine program. For non-educators, this can be a challenge.

What I like about this most recent article and some of the others by the author is that he highlights character formation as essential in learning.

...simply teaching math and reading — the so-called cognitive skills — isn’t nearly enough, especially for children who have grown up enduring the stresses of poverty. In fact, it might not even be the most important thing. Rather, tapping into a great deal of recent research, Tough writes that the most important things to develop in students are “noncognitive skills,” which Tough labels as “character.” Many of the people who have done the research or are running the programs that Tough admires have different ways of expressing those skills. But they are essentially character traits that are necessary to succeed not just in school, but in life.

The article goes on to mention that any student, not just those "enduring the stresses of poverty", benefit from character formation. And character formation is not just for schools, but let's not get into that debate right now. Apparently all of this is drawing on 10 years of research in the area. And I'm inclined to think, especially from a Kingdom perspective, that we might just be on to something. 

Along with all of the successes of this past summer, MTOP collaborated with Tracy City Elementary School, Scholastic (yes, the ones that write text books), and the Yale Child Development Center (yes, that Yale) to pilot a camp to teach resiliency (i.e., noncognitive skills) in younger children. I mean, I know Dr. Linda Mayes at Yale knows what she is talking about, but I guess I just didn't see it all at first.

Of course, none of us really knew this when we started Quest. It just made sense.