“As human beings, we all live in two worlds. There is the world that exists whether or not you exist. It was there before you came into it, and will be there when you have gone. This is the world of objects, events, and other people; it is the world around you. There is another world that exists only because you exist: the private world of your own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, the world within you. We only know the world around us through the world within us, through the senses by which we perceive it and the ideas by which we make sense of it…Our lives are formed by the constant interactions between these two worlds, each affecting how we see and act in the other.” – Sir Ken Robinson, Creative Schools.

Sir Ken Robinson, of blessed memory, one of the most influential educational thinkers of our time has had a significant impact on my thinking as an educator and parent. In his book, Creative Schools, He wrote about the “sacred” worlds we live in.

The first time I read the above quote from Creative Schools, I was so moved. It felt familiar, Jewish, and spiritual. I have referred back to it many times, as I think it is the essence of what we must always focus on when raising and teaching children – for both worlds are essential for a child to securely grow, explore, question and become.

There is no doubt that Sir Robinson’s message to us educators and parents is to remember and hold sacred that each child is a unique soul – a unique individual, and that insight must inform our approach to each child.

I often connect his words to the words of our rabbis found in the Talmud, “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” (Mishnah 4:5; Yerushalmi Talmud 4:9)

The inner world of the child is the child’s world, influenced by the outer world. The two worlds merge through life experiences, interactions with others, and the child’s engagement in the physical sphere.

In order to truly nurture each child’s soul, parenting and often teaching, need a reset in this country. Alison Gopnik, a psychology and philosophy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in her book, The Gardener and the Carpenter, writes about two types of parents, the carpenter and the gardener. The “carpenter” thinks that their child can be molded. “The idea is that if you just do the right things, get the right skills, read the right books, you’re going to be able to shape your child into a particular kind of adult,” she says. The “gardener,” on the other hand, is less concerned about controlling who the child will become and instead provides a protected space to explore. The style is all about “creating a rich, nurturant but also variable, diverse, dynamic ecosystem.”

Alison Gopnik spent decades researching children’s development, and found that too many parents are carpenters who often focus too much on who their children will be as adults. The harm in that approach, she says, is that parents and their offspring may become anxious, tense or unhappy. And many do.

For much of the past half-century, children, adolescents, and young adults in the U.S. have been saying they feel as though their lives are increasingly out of their control. At the same time, rates of anxiety and depression have risen steadily. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among individuals between the age of 10 and 34.

Carpenter parents, or whatever other term you want to use - helicopter, snowplow, etc. - are driven by fear, recognized or not! These parents are also driven by competition and pressure, not by science or reality. Not only are parents feeling undue pressure, but our children are, too.

We compare one child to another, even before they start school. Academic benchmarks are being pushed earlier and earlier based on the mistaken assumption that starting earlier means that kids will do better later. The stark reality, however, is that while expectations have changed, children haven’t. Today’s five-year-olds are no more advanced than their peers were in 1929, 1959, 1989.

Give your children the time and space they need to grow and develop. Every brain and every child’s inner world is different, and will develop and progress a little differently than the next child. There are ranges of development and those ranges are usually pretty wide. Enjoy their childhood with them. It is not a race or a competition with other parents!

Schechter is working hard to create a stimulating learning environment – a rich, diverse garden for learning. We have made great strides, but there is still much work to be done. It is incumbent upon us to help each child expand their worlds in ways that nurtures who they are and can become. Like the gardener who cannot make a plant grow or bloom but can set the conditions for optimal growth – the same applies to the child and their learning.

Let’s all become “gardeners,” and love our children enough to let them become their best selves in their inner and outer worlds!