Education Readings
By Allan Alach
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| Time for out of the box thinking |
Sometimes Misbehavior Is Not What It Seems
“When Sigmund Freud reportedly said, "Sometimes a cigar is just
a cigar," the key word was "sometimes," because sometimes a
cigar is more than a cigar. So it is with understanding misbehavior. Sometimes
the reason for misbehavior is very different than the obvious and requires a
totally different intervention than the usual consequences. It is never easy to
determine why children do the things they do.”
Emotions Help Steer Students' Learning, Studies Find
So if children are bored to tears by the
formalised instruction, how much learning is taking place? The converse is
equally true.
“In a new book, Emotions, Learning, and the Brain, Immordino-Yang
and her colleagues at USC's Brain Creativity Institute found that as students
learn new rules during a task, such as the most efficient way to answer a math
problem or the best deck to choose in a card game, they show emotional and
physical responses long before they became consciously aware of the rules or
are able to articulate them.”
What Does “Making” Have To Do With Learning?
“Making is not just the simple act of you being the difference
between raw materials and finished product, as in “I made dinner” or
even “I made a robot.” I don’t think we always need to ascribe learning to
the act of making — but the act of making allows the maker, and maybe an
outsider (a teacher, perhaps) to have a window into the thinking of the maker.”
Are We Making Space For Imagination?
“I want my kids to retain this sense
of wonder. I want them to remain imaginative. I want them to follow curiosity
and see where it leads. I want them to design and build and create and invent.
I want them to play with ideas. I realize that imagination changes over time.
But it shouldn't be something that shrinks or diminishes. It should be
something that expands and evolves. Maybe it gets more realistic. Maybe it
grows more rooted in reality. But the imagination should always remain.”
Education is being hijacked by profiteers
“Education reformers like to say they are doing it for the
kids. That the reforms will improve the education system. Mountains of evidence
shows this is poppycock and that education reforms overwhelmingly lead to
profits being more important than the children’s education.”
The Dystopian Future of Schools
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| Standardisation |
“It is becoming increasingly clear that the original concept of
developing greater student agency — a complex task — is being lost in attempts
by well-intentioned schools to provide this opportunity in a manageable manner
which is, in turn, being capitalized upon by the “education reform” industry.
These canned approaches move us further and further away from the objective of
making learning personal.”
Contributed by Bruce Hammonds:
Modern Learning Environments (MLEs) /
Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs) and what it means for use of space,
time and grouping of students in schools
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| Traditional Learning Environment |
Bruce has written another article in his sequence on this latest trend
in classroom design.
“Today we now have have the concept of
'innovative learning environments' linked with the development of 'modern learning
environments'. Not that the practices actually 'new', more that they have failed to be
implemented in the past, or only to be found in a few creative classrooms. And
certainly such innovative learning environments are rare in schools 'educating' adolescent
students.”
Creativity: A Choice, a Gift, and a Mission
“When we define and embrace our own creativity,
we thrive. And when their teachers thrive, students will learn to thrive as
well. We can take responsibility for thriving by giving ourselves the powerful
gift of being creative.”
Need to Remember Something? Try Drawing It
Are you able to make use of this in your classroom? I suspect Tony Buzan
(Mind Maps) will be saying ‘I told you so.’
“Researchers at the University of Waterloo have
found that drawing pictures of information that needs to be remembered is a
strong and reliable strategy to enhance memory.”
From Bruce’s ‘goldie oldies’
file:
The science of teaching – or the teaching of science
“It would seem that students’ experience of school science has
not helped them see science as an exciting way of thinking about fascinating
areas of learning. Problem solving, finding out how things work, exploring
ideas, learning through enlightened trial and error are all innate
way of human learning – the default mode inherited from birth. All life is a
search for meaning. It is not that children are young scientists but that
scientists still see the world with the passionate curiosity of a child.”
Accountability or ‘Accountabalism'
‘Weinberger says we have been, 'lured by the myth of precision'.
Accountabalism 'suggests there is a right or wrong answer to every question'
and that we can measure all results exactly. 'Accountabalism' has well and
truly spread to schools where compliance and the need to measure selected
achievement targets to prove success is the name of the game.’
Making a real difference!
“What 'counts' is the culture of the students, their life
experiences and their existing knowledge; what 'counts' is involving students
and their parents in the learning process; what 'counts' are the relationships
between teachers and their students; what 'counts' are the teaching strategies
teachers use in their classrooms and what 'counts' is the total culture of the
school.”
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