Educational Readings
By Allan Alach
The tragic events caused by Superstorm Sandy in the USA have raised
awareness of the implications of climate change, regardless of the deniers.
Significantly, the deniers are supported strongly (by all accounts, funded) by
the corporates who want to preserve their profit streams, even if these have
major consequences down the line. This requires deniers to ignore or discount
the evidence of research and the warnings from highly experienced and
knowledgeable experts. Ideology before evidence, in other words. Does this
remind you of anything facing the education sector? Yet another of these
amazing coincidences?
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it
to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.
This week’s homework!
The
cost of a great teacher? Priceless
Do I need to comment?
Frank Cottrell Boyce: schools risk putting children
off reading forever
“Tests make pupils feel like failures before they have
barely begun...”
A sad ending for the children’s bedtime story:
Declining attention spans mean they could become a
thing of the past
Never mind,
standardised education, school league tables and teacher performance pay will
cure all ills.
Everything I Need To Know - About Education - I Learned
In Kindergarten
On the other hand,
articles like this help keep the faith.
Leaning tower of PISA – 7 serious skews
The PISA tests are one
of the biggest blights on the educational landscape. So much of the GERM agenda
is based on (mis)interpretation of the so-called data that can be extracted
from these. Note that PISA was not developed by educators, but by number
crunching economists. Finland, of course, isn’t sucked in by PISA.
Ofsted 'taking the soul out of school', adviser warns
“Teachers are being forced into delivering
“very robotic” lessons to satisfy the requirements of Ofsted, said John
McIntosh, a key figure on the Government’s ongoing review of the curriculum.”
Enough said.
We need to think very, very seriously about this
Something more
positive. What are the implications for this in our schools?
Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on
the learning revolution!
Again, in a more positive vein, here is a
TED talk by Sir Ken that follows up on his 2006 effort, which is still the
highest rating TED talk of all time. Both talks are well worth watching, either
for the first time, or to refresh your vision.
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