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
Diane Ravitch to Obama: ‘I will never understand why you decided to
align your education policy with that of George W. Bush’
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| Diana Ravitch |
Much of this article is applicable all over.
‘I quite bluntly admit in the book that the pursuit of national
standards, national curriculum and national tests is a dead-end. There seems to
be an assumption that if every child is exposed to exactly the same material at
the same time, achievement gaps between children from rich homes and poor homes
will close. If the curriculum is over the heads of the students, and if the
tests are made harder, achievement will rise. I now think all of this is
nonsense.’
First Comes Achievement. Then Comes Confidence.
Bill Ferriter:
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| The confidence o grow |
‘A few weeks back, I wrote a bit here on the Radical titled Are
Grades Destroying My Six Year Old Kid.
In it, I shared the story of my daughter -- who came home broken one day
because her progress report wasn't what she expected it to be. Her peers were earning threes and fours, but
her report was covered in twos -- and while she knows little about what those
numbers really mean, she felt like a failure.
That broke my heart.’
Reading: It's Not Always Fun-damental
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| Linda Neilsen |
‘Parents and teachers work hard to instill a love of reading in
young people. In fact, most consider that the love of reading is absolutely
essential to a happy, successful, and fulfilling life. They are on an endless
pursuit to find ways to cultivate readers or ignite a love of reading. But
what about individuals who prefer not to get their information that way?’
Contributed by Bruce Hammonds:
9 creativity myths you should stop believing
‘Creativity is a relative subject. Some perceive creativity as an
art that can be trained and some think of it as an innate talent. Creativity is
associated with many such myths that make people form different opinions of
this subject But what defines “creativity” in its true sense?Creativity is
anything that stimulates thinking and gives new directions to our thoughts.
Keeping into the essence of its definition, any person can be creative in his
own way. So, we can say that there is nothing called “born talent” or “innate creativity”
in the real world.’
‘Teaching to the test means schools are meeting literacy targets but
failing to cultivate a love of reading’
‘It is difficult to work out a balanced view of the role and
influence that testing has on the
What I Worry About When I Worry About STEM
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| Author Jane |
‘The bias toward STEM (science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics) as the subjects for more intelligent, or more productive people is
nothing new. It’s easier to see that they instil skills that are useful to
industry, and that makes perfect sense, but only if we think education is all
about a direct path to employment.We should encourage more young people into
STEM, and do much more to demystify these subjects, but are we so worried about
the economy that we’re willing to accept that education is simply a path to
being an employee or entrepreneur.’
8 Myths That Undermine Educational Effectiveness
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| Eight myths |
‘Certain widely-shared myths and lies about education are
destructive for all of us as educators, and destructive for our educational
institutions. This is the subject of 50 Myths & Lies That Threaten America’s
Public Schools: The Real Crisis in Education, a new book by David Berliner and
Gene Glass, two of the country’s most highly respected educational researchers.
Although the book deserves to be read in its entirety, I want to focus on eight
of the myths that I think are relevant to most teachers, administrators, and
parents.’
Classroom Aesthetics: Not the “Art of Teaching” -
Teaching As Art
‘Sometimes the magic and beauty of the classroom, the soaring beyond
simple skills and content, happens in the most unexpected ways. At these
moments, we are experiencing a kind of performance art in the classroom. Take
the following example.’
'Rote learning: the pantomime villain in education’
‘In one corner (shall we call it the blue one?) we have Dickensian
school-masters in gowns and mortar boards forcing cowed and passive pupils to
learn their tables by heart and recite them
And in the other corner, we have caring, modern-day teachers gently
leading their pupils on a journey of understanding where they discover for
themselves that three fours are twelve and, because of that intimate and
personal experience of learning, they never forget that fact for the rest of
their lives.’
From Bruce’s ‘goldie oldies’ file:
30 Years ago - so what has changed?
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| My class in 1978 |
‘Recently I received an e-mail from a student I hadn't heard of
since she was in my class in 1978. She wrote about how great it was to
experience the class and how much all that we did has stayed with her over the
years. With this in mind I searched out something I wrote, at the time, for the
team of teachers I was leading. I was curious to see how much my ideas had
changed since then. What follows are extracts I wrote to clarify my thoughts
and to share with the team followed by some reflective comments.’
Rip van Winkle and schools
‘A recent Time Magazine lead story begins with what it calls ‘a dark
little joke exchanged by teachers with a dissident streak: Rip Van Winkle
awakens in the 21st century after a hundred year snooze and is of course
utterly bewildered by what he sees’. ‘Every place Rip goes just baffles him.
But when finally he walks into a schoolroom, the old man knows exactly where he
is. “This is a school”, he declares. “We used to have these
back in 1906”’
We need a new story for our future.
‘What we need, as we make our way into the new millennium, is a new
way of thinking to align our thoughts behind. We need a new story , myth,
narrative, or metaphor, to
replace current thinking - thinking based on a
mechanistic emphasis on economic progress, exploitation and short term
thinking.
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| Darwin changed our story |
It is obvious that current thinking is unable to solve the problems
of inequality in our society - the gap between the rich and poor continues to
grow.’
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