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| Moving from an industrial aged education system |
Education Readings
By Allan Alach
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come
across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz
What’s Going on Inside the Brain Of A Curious Child?
Thanks to Michael Fawcett for this one.
‘Blackwell, like many others teachers, understands that when kids
are curious, they’re much more likely to stay engaged. But why? What, exactly,
is curiosity and how does it work? A study published in the October issue of
the journal Neuron, suggests that the brain’s chemistry changes when we become
curious, helping us better learn and retain information.’
8 Ways The Internet Has Changed Learning A Language
Thanks to John Hawthorne.
‘It’s no secret that the internet has changed everything, from
shopping to friendship to entertainment to music. The internet is also
revolutionizing the process of learning a new language. It’s opening many
options that never existed twenty years ago.
This isn’t to say that it’s less challenging to understand and speak
a foreign language, but the process has changed dramatically.’
Learners Should Be Developing Their Own Essential Questions
‘Although essential questions are powerful advance organizers and
curriculum drivers, the problem is that the essential questions are typically
developed by the educator not the learners. The educator may find these
questions interesting and engaging, but that does not insure that students will
find them as such.’
The Diminishing Role of Art in Children's Lives
‘But according to new research conducted in the Netherlands by the
Dutch school inspectorate, the amount of time children spend drawing by hand
both in and out of school has been reduced over the last 20 years; the study
also found that their artwork has declined significantly in quality and
complexity since a similar study was conducted two decades ago.’
The danger of students doing what they’re told
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| Formulaic teaching damaging imagination |
‘The more teachers continue to issue instructions to learners about
what to do and how to do it, the more we develop completely the wrong mindsets
and dispositions for the world in 2025. The world is now exponential and
schools need exponential change to happen now. There is no longer time for the
traditional analog and linear systems that school use when planning for change.
It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee! it’s time for school administrators
to reconsider how planning and decisions are made and acknowledge that within
the new context, the industrial education model is now damaging our children’s
future opportunities.’
Summer Break: The Least Understood And Most Maligned Aspect Of A
Teacher’s Life
‘Imagine just two normal people – they seem nice enough – standing
in line having a friendly conversation. It’s hot outside, so you might hear the
usual topics discussed: the weather, the best place to buy ice cream, which
public pool has the best prices – that an oh I don’t know, how easy teachers
have it with their summers off.’
Contributed by Bruce Hammonds:
Shifting Needs in a Digital World
‘With a shifting world, comes shifting
needs. And along with shifting needs comes a shifting role that schools must
take on in order to best prepare students moving forward. We must revisit the
graphic above to explore and best support students with their changing needs in
our digital world.’
Why ‘Personalized Learning’ Can Feel So
Impersonal
‘Personalized learning, in its broadest
application, suggests tailoring instruction to meet the needs, strengths and
interests of each learner. Great teachers already do that everyday—with or
without technology. It should be a goal both broad and laudable enough to unite
teachers and technologists, parents and policymakers.Yet there is clearly a gap
between how educators and entrepreneurs perceive “personalized learning” and
many other technology-infused terms in education.’
Does Zuck Want To Be The Next Gates with
Personalized Learning
‘Pediatrician Priscilla Chan and Facebook
founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are gearing up to invest hundreds of millions
of dollars a year in a new vision of “whole-child personalized learning,” with
the aim of dramatically expanding the scope and scale of efforts to provide
every
student with a customized education. The power couple's Big Initiative
has announced its intent to "support the development of software that
might help teachers better recognize and respond to each student’s academic
needs—while also supporting a holistic approach to nurturing children’s social,
emotional, and physical development." So, slap the child in front of a
screen, but somehow have the child turn out physically and emotionally
well-rounded.’
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| Zuckerberg or Socrates ( see below) |
Liberal Arts in the Data Age
‘From Silicon Valley to the Pentagon,
people are beginning to realize that to effectively tackle today’s biggest
social and technological challenges, we need to think critically about their
human context—something humanities graduates happen to be well trained to do.
Call it the revenge of the film, history, and philosophy nerds.’
From Bruce’s ‘goldie oldies’ file:
Developing a democratic curriculum.
Developing democratic schools – James Beane
‘Relating back to the ideas of John Dewey James Beane believes
that if people are to live democratic lives they must have the opportunity to
learn what that way of life means. His ideas are based on the ability of
students to participate in their own education. Democratic schools share a
child centred approach but their larger goal is to change the undemocratic
conditions of school themselves and in turn to reach out to the wider
community.’
On Knowing - Jerome Bruner
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| Jerome Bruner - wise words |
“The themes Jerome Bruner covers in his book concern the process of
knowing, how knowing is shaped and how it in turn gives form to language
science, literature and art. The symbolism of the left hand is that of the
dreamer - the right that of the practical doer.The areas of hunches and
intuition, Bruner writes, has been all too often overwhelmed by an 'imposed
fetish of objectivity'...'The lock step of learning theory in this country has
been broken, though it is still the standard village dance'. Today we still
have those ( usually politicians) who wish to test for learning ignoring,
according to Bruner, that 'it is difficult to catch and record, no less
understand, the swift flight of man's mind operating at its best.’”
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