Learning is a wonderful thing, it's a shame we have to go to school to get it. In the hopes of improving schools, a bad student tries to figure out why he became a teacher.
Breaking Down Generational Silos
“Beware of random collisions with unusual suspects.
Unless, that is, you want to learn something new. In that case, seek out innovators from across every imaginable silo and listen, really listen, to their stories. New ideas, perspectives, and opportunities await in the gray areas between the unusual suspects.
It seems so obvious and yet we spend most of our time with the usual suspects in our respective silos. One of the most important silos we need to break down is the one between generations.”
- From the Huffington Post’s article on Choose2Matter and Business Innovation Factory, where students and innovators are linked in purposeful conversations and action. Read the article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/angela-maiers/breaking-down-generationa_b_3285895.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
Education 3.0 and the Pedagogy (Andragogy, Heutagogy) of Mobile Learning
Some “light” readings for my fellow pedagogues. Here’s an excerpt:
Education 3.0 is a connectivist, heutagogical approach to teaching and learning. The teachers, learners, networks, connections, media, resources, tools create a a unique entity that has the potential to meet individual learners’, educators’, and even societal needs. Many resources for Education 3.0 are literally freely available for the taking.
The problem is the assumption that 3.0 is better than 2.0 in all areas. For example - do we want technology everywhere? If that was the case, my students would be more saturated with memes and pictures of Jordans than they already are. Not good.
“Chinese professors and political analysts said a recent directive from Beijing to universities indicated an awareness among the country’s leaders that the government is losing its ideological grip over students and younger faculty members.
While many faculty members said they had not been briefed by university administrators about the taboos, and in some cases had never heard of them, several professors said university leaders had instructed them at the beginning of May to avoid the subjects in class. According to academics who have been told about the list, the other taboo topics are judicial independence, economic neoliberalism, the wealth accumulated by top government officials, and civil society.”
This article highlights how different education can be in other parts of the world. I have students who feel they are being censored because they cannot curse in my classroom. I wonder how they would feel in a classroom in which the discussions are limited by the government.
Exhibit #152 why education is so damn powerful. Schools are the place where ideas are strong enough to be banned.
Why French kids don’t have ADHD
“In the United States, at least 9% of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5%. How come the epidemic of ADHD—which has become firmly established in the United States—has almost completely passed over children in France?”
Read the full article here.
Czechs: We’re not Chechens
“In a statement posted on the embassy Web site, Petr Gandalovic said “the Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities — the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.”
Mirca Sekerova recommends Americans “open a geography book once in a while…stop blaming our country for this.”
And Petr Manda commented: “Well done, U.S. education system.”
Article here.
-Terry Tempest Williams in Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert
Nothing could be more true about the current state of education in our country.
As a teacher in DC Public Schools, this hits very close to home. I will read this book, and hope you all can to. Here’s a snippet from a review by Jennifer Howard of Michelle Rhee’s new book Radical.
If you are, have been or might soon be the parent of a school-age child in Washington,you have an opinion about Michelle Rhee, who ran the city’s public schools from 2007 to 2010. In a town full of divisive personalities, Rhee polarized opinion more than any other public figure I can remember, with the exception of a handful of officials. (Here’s looking at you, Marion Barry.) Either you admire her do-whatever-it-takes attempts to overhaul a system that had become a national embarrassment, or you loathe her as a power-mad, union-busting, school-closing dictator who trampled over teachers, parents and public servants.
Why urban schools need more college guidance counselors…
All the more reason for high-quality college guidance counseling at urban high schools. We’ve got one - do you?
Some of the poorest high schoolers in the country are also among our top-performers. These “low-income, high-achieving” students come from the poorest 25 percent of families, but their grades and SAT scores place them in the top 10 — or even top 5 percent — of all students. Getting these students in our best colleges should be a national ambition. It would increase social mobility, raise national productivity, increase taxable income, shrink our deficit, cut income-support payments … you get the point.
But the point is, we’re failing. In fact, the majority of these smart poor students don’t apply toanyselective college or university, according to a newpaperby Caroline M. Hoxby and Christopher Avery — even though the most selective schools would actually cost them less, after counting financial aid. Poor students with practically the same grades as their richer classmates are 75 percent less likely to apply to selective colleges.
From
Why Smart Poor Students Don’t Apply to Selective Colleges (And How to Fix It) by Derek Thompson
Venture Capital’s Massive, Terrible Idea For The Future Of College
The Awl’s harsh critique of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). A must read for all interested in the future of education:
They’ve been described as “a relentless force that will not be denied,” revolutionary, “the single most important experiment in higher education.” Also MOOCs are getting a drubbing from academics and others who believe there’s more to higher education than can be provided via “distance learning.”
It’s not quite free, as early MOOC proponents began by promising. It is worth mentioning, too, that Udacity is a venture-funded startup, that classes will be supervised not by tenured profs but by Udacity employees, and that Thrun declined to tell the Times how much public money his company will be raking in for this pilot—or what more may have been promised should the pilot prove “successful.”
Okay, fine, but let’s get this straight: public money has been mercilessly hacked from California’s education budget for decades, so now we are to give public money, taxpayer money, to private, for-profit companies to take up the slack? Because that is exactly what is happening. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just fund education to the levels we had back when it was working?
Read the entire article here.
County considers copyrighting student work
A proposal by the Prince George’s County Board of Education to copyright work created by staff and students for school could mean that a picture drawn by a first-grader, a lesson plan developed by a teacher or an app created by a teen would belong to the school system, not the individual.
The measure has some worried that by the system claiming ownership to the work of others, creativity could be stifled and there would be little incentive to come up with innovative ways to educate students. Some have questioned the legality of the proposal as it relates to students.
Read the full Washington Post article here.
The other day when my Head of School walked into my classroom with Bob Woodward, I was like…
thescribbled asked: If this were like a real classroom, that would work. But I can't send him in the hallway. I'm not supposed to be a "teacher," but rather a student peer. It's a supplemental discussion class offered in conjunction with a US history survey course.
That’s ridiculous. If you are a peer, why are you planning, facilitating, and leading the discussions? Put him in the driver seat and ask him to lead a discussion on some topic. Then, watch what happens - either the other kids will eat his bigotry for breakfast or he’ll show his true colors as someone who just wanted to get attention that’s not that bad after all. If you need to disguise it, make it a project where they each lead one discussion (or mini-seminar 15 minutes or so)
Harvard graduates explain seasons. Incorrectly. How come our country’s top Universities graduate students who leave with the same misconceptions they entered with? Why were none of these people able to correctly explain why seasons change?
For more shocking footage of America’s top graduates unable to answer simple questions about science please see this, a site for a documentary about why even the brightest students fail to grasp the simplest of concepts.
Three Pennsylvania classmates get perfect SAT scores
(Photo: NBCPhiladelphia.com / Deanna Durante)
Three students from Montgomery County, Pa., accomplished something extremely rare — they all scored a perfect score of 2400 on their SAT.
And the best quote?
Benjamin She, 16, says the test is all about skill. “Taking a standardized test like the SAT is just like doing a skill like Poker, it’s all about what you need to do to analyze the questions.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Are the reformers listening?
(via nbcnews)
