By Allan Alach
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!
William Mathis on "Economics, Education and Sitting Bull"
“Facing
the extinction of Sioux culture, Sitting Bull realized that their hope – their
only hope –
was in the life they made for their children.
Confronted by this reality, he saw that education was
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something far more than
the narrow teaching of a set of test-based, academic skills. Education must
impart the knowledge of the ways of the society, of fruitful interactions, of
sustaining and nurturing cultural beliefs and rituals, of language and of the
economic order, if you will, of a group of independent but related nomadic
tribes. (And when the Anglo forces won, they established Indian schools to
stamp out this culture).”
Fostering Creativity In The Learning Process
“As educators, when
it comes to creativity in the classroom, there are 2 things we can do. We can
take the path of least resistance and take creativity out of the learning
process. Or we can create an environment that fosters creativity in learning
and allow kids to explore their talents.”
Franz Kafka and the Metamorphosis of Teacher Evaluations
“One
morning, when Mr. K woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in
his
classroom into a horrible insect. He lay on his segmented brown belly
propped against his teachers desk. He had fallen asleep trying to grade English
papers again. His armor-like back ached and wiry thin antennae kept bobbing
into view like stray hairs. If he lifted his head a little, he could see his
many tiny legs waving about helplessly each holding a pen or pencil.
“What’s happened to me?” he
thought.”
Engaging students in learning, not just schooling
“In
any given lesson or class, some students are engaged in their own learning
process because they are inherently interested in the topic. Other students may just be attending to get it over with. These are
the students we are losing, because they are only engaging in their schooling,
not in their personal learning. But, how to help these students to engage in
their own learning?”
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| By Jo Nocera |
“The
main thing that works is treating teaching as a profession, and teachers as
professionals. That means that teachers are as well paid as other
professionals, that they have a career ladder, that they go to elite schools
where they learn their craft, and that they are among the top quartile of
college graduates instead of the bottom quartile.”
Do girls learn differently?
“Neuroscientist
Lise Eliot has argued persuasively that, while small inherent differences in
aptitude between males and females do exist (even as infants, for example, boys
seem to have an edge in spatial cognition), society takes these small
differences and makes them much bigger—by supporting
boys in math and science, and by discouraging girls who study these subjects.”
The wasteful fraud of sorting for youth meritocracy
“What
if we celebrated the students who regularly try the hardest, help each other
the most and lead? What if we fast tracked those students, and made it clear to
anyone else willing to adopt those attitudes that they could be celebrated too?
What if you got cast, tracked or made the cut because you were resilient, hard
working and willing to set yourself up for a cycle of continuous improvement?
Isn't that more important than rewarding the kid who never passes but still
scores a lot of goals?”
‘Pseudoscience
has nested in schools’
“When
Nick Rose worked as a parapsychologist, his job was to investigate why people
believed they had been haunted by ghosts or abducted by aliens. When he became
a teacher, he expected that all this would be replaced by hard facts and a
rigorous curriculum – but teaching is “rife” with
myths and pseudoscience, he believes.
At a major conference on the use of research
in education, Mr Rose said schools had “very little immunity to nonsense” and urged teachers to have the confidence
to ask “impertinent” questions about
approaches that had no scientific basis.”
This week’s contributions from
How iPads, mobility and a pedagogical mind shift can transform
learning.
Bruce’s comment: A
creative NZ teacher shares ideas about using technology in her MLE classroom.
Here’s a series of links about modern learning
environments.
Bruce’s comment: Modern
Learning Environments are the ‘in thing’ but most of the material seems to relate to architectural and
resource features but the link below does provide how pedagogy and modern
learning spaces interact. For those with very long memories such ‘open plan ‘ modern
learning environments were all the rage in the 70s – in
the UK, the US and New Zealand. Take a quick look at the link below but get
down to the real school examples from Australia, the US and the UK at the end.
The proof of course can only be judged by the quality of the students' in depth
thinking across the Learning Areas – to be
successful they ought to reflect the things you would see at Science, Technology and Maths fairs or Creative Arts performances.
Linking Pedagogy and Space.
New Zealand examples are Pegasus Bay
School
and Hobsonville primary and secondary
schools.
Modern Learning Environments.
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| MLE 1968 ! |
Why Classroom Wall Displays Matter
Bruce’s comment: Someone I totally agree with ! A MLE teacher in a
Singapore School. MLEs should produce powerful displays of in depth learning.
“In
the 21st century we are all very focussed
on utilising digital technologies with our students as a tool to support
learning. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge
advocate for technology in the classroom, and this article is not an
anti-technology battle post. One of the thing that I have found recently when I
have been in amazing digital schools is that often classroom wall displays are
lacking, I found myself asking why ….”
Classroom Display Inspiration
Bruce’s comment about this Pinterest site: Maybe there are a few ideas
below to inspire displays of student thinking?
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