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| 'We don't need your education' Pink Floyd |
Education Readings for Creative Teaching
By Allan Alach
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come
across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz
Fidget spinner fad may point to deeper problem in the classroom
‘We need to look at making the curriculum more engaging so that
fewer kids need fidgeting toys. Fidget spinners are the hottest new gadget
among school children, and while they're billed as useful tools to help kids
focus, a University of Ottawa professor believes schools need to better
accommodate students who get fidgety and need to move.’
Arts-Based Research: Surprise and Self-Motivation
‘A sense of delight in learning comes as much from encountering what
you hadn't expected as it does from seeing a project shake out the way you
intended it. I love project-based learning for the sense of accomplishment it
engenders in students, but I miss the sense of surprise -- the notion that
anything can happen. While it's important to help kids see the path that will
enable them to succeed, I also want them to get lost from time to time -- not
to take the road less traveled, but to leave roads altogether in favor of the
forest.’
Education Technology as 'The New Normal’
‘I’m well known, I think, for fierce
criticisms and cautions about education technology, and what I’ve prepared
today is perhaps even darker and more polemical than I’d like, strikingly so on
this beautiful campus. I confess: I am feeling incredibly concerned about the
direction the world is taking – politically, environmentally, economically,
intellectually, institutionally, technologically. Trump. Digital technologies,
even education technologies, are implicated in all of this, and if we are not
careful, we are going to make things worse.’
Boxing Creativity
‘There is a major difference between telling someone they can be
creative and telling someone how to be creative. I'm firmly in the Everyone Is
Creative camp. I don't even mean that with the qualifier, "Until it's
beaten out of them by school/work/life/the Trunchbull." I mean every
single person on Earth, and everyone living in the secret moon base established
by NASA in the '70s, has the innate ability to be creative. And every one of us
uses that ability on a regular basis.’
OPINION: It’s time to stop the clock on math anxiety. Here’s the
latest research on how
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| Jo Boaler |
Jo Boaler:
‘Unfortunately math continues to be taught in ways that are far
removed from the research evidence on ways to teach well, and many ineffective
classroom practices – timed tests, speed pressure, procedural teaching – are
the reasons for the vast numbers of children and adults with math anxiety. They
are also the reason that so many high-achieving students leave not only
mathematics but the numerous STEM courses that require mathematics.’
Contributed by Bruce Hammonds:
Personalized
Learning Pathways & the Gig Economy
‘Students need
to be prepared for short-term jobs and not expect full-time employment. How
empowering is that? Sounds like the goal of this radical re-imagining of
education is to produce workers willing to eek out a precarious existence in
the gig economy.’
The Loose Parts Movement: Bringing
Adventure, Nature and Imagination Back to Children’s Play Time
From Wayne Morris:
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| This is what is missing |
‘It is a disappointing thing to see new
playgrounds developed in city spaces sit there empty each day, or to walk in
the park and hear no laughter. What is missing here is not the children per se,
but materials and environments that create challenge, imagination, and
creativity that make children want to play outdoors. The absence of such play
environments is not only influencing the quantity and quality of children’s
play, but also affecting children’s health and well-being.’
Sight Words Are So 2016: New Study Finds
the Real Key to Early Literacy
This article supplied by Anne Mace relates to what creative
teachers in NZ believe. Simply put, children who used invented spelling
developed stronger reading skills over time, regardless of their existing
vocabulary, alphabetic knowledge, or word reading skills.So, what exactly is
invented spelling? Invented spelling refers to a young child’s beginning
attempts to spell words. Using what they know and understand about letters and
writing, children who use invented spelling are encouraged to create their own
spellings based on their own phonetic knowledge.
Efficiency Can Cost Education
There are very good reasons to resist (or at
least be skeptical of) efforts to drive "efficiency" in public education.
‘One of the biggest reasons is that any
attempt to maximize efficiency automatically elevates –
some might say inflates
– the role of performance metrics. Once we decide which indicators are going to
define success and then set people off to find the swiftest and cheapest way to
get those outcomes, we can begin to distort complex enterprises. Other outcomes
become expendable, even if those outcomes are important.’
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| Efficiency kills creativity! |
From Bruce’s ‘goldie oldies’ file:
Written in 76 - so what is new?
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| John Holt - still relevant |
‘Making use of students own experiences, question and concerns as
the basis for learning is still an important issue, as is making full use of
the immediate environment. This is all the more important these days as far too
many children spent too much time receiving a second hand edited world through
TV and computer screens.From their own questions and concerns, and through
environmental explorations, 'emerge' real reasons to write , read, to count and
measure, and to make art. All students need are teachers with the 'artistry'
and confidence to take advantage and amplify such learning opportunities.’
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| Need to savoir the experience |
Slow food movement - and teaching as well!
We need an educational equivalent of the ‘slow
food’ movement
‘We now need an educational equivalent of the ‘slow food movement’ so
as to value the richness and relevance of any learning experience. Students
need to appreciate that the act of learning is at the very heart of their
identity and a high quality life and as such should not be rushed.The
standardized ‘fast education’, as exemplified by the curriculum statements of
the past decades, has resulted in a loss of appetite for real learning. There
is just no time.’
Putting the heart back into teaching.
‘Learning is about relationships. Relationships with content and
with people who help us acquire it.
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| Time to end educational standardization ! |
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