I'm going to share this tomorrow -- because though many disagree with me, personally, I think this is completely true:
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This title alone is worth the read: Recipe for High School Success: be curious, work late, ignore the textbooks.
I find this passage the most interesting -
I call my experience ʻbackwards learning,ʼ and if thereʼs one thing which has resonated with me is the concept of challenging what youʼre taught in the textbooks. High-school textbooks are devices that regurgitate the universally accepted and least debated ideas from the field of science and technology, almost placing us in an isolated prism where we learn to accept knowledge. The debates and intellectually stimulating articles presenting a different hypothesis toward the same problem are often not exposed to us until we reach a graduate level of education. Lao Tzu said “...watch your habits as they become your character.” Looking at the habits which weʼre taught growing up in a traditional classroom, itʼs unfortunate to have a room full of students with identical knowledge and nearly the same understanding about a subject as complex as the human anatomy.
This article echoes what everyone in education is saying: we're going through a huge paradigm shift in education right now. About 150 years ago we had the one room school house where everyone learned together and quit school after sixth grade or so. And that worked well for America, prepping students with life skills and knowledge to thrive in an agrarian based economy.
Then came the shift to mandatory elementary and high school education. And this worked even better for America, prepping students to work - for the most part - in an industrialized economy.
Now, though, we are on the cusp of leaving the factory model of education behind and moving on to - - something else. Or at least we should be because just about everyone agrees that the current system is not prepping students for the global economy.
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How Adults are Stealing Ambition from Kids
A colleague sent me this. And I think it's true. We reward kids for just participating instead of excelling. I'm reminded here of a reading we had in College Comp II that talked about a little girl who was just beginning high school. She played hockey and the author of the article noted that she - by the age of 13 - had already amassed more trophies and banners and medals that her cousin, who was a professional hockey player! Something is wrong with that system.
We are so afraid of crushing our kid's spirits that we prevent them from failing. I'm reminded of this sad story where a community in Denver had to call of its Easter Egg hunt because they parents were interfering on behalf of their children!
Any time adults criticize or lament the state of affairs of kids today, I always think, well we only have one group of people to blame: ourselves. We raised them. So own up to it.
I like what the author says about helping students develop ambitions -
First, allow them to fail. But don't stop there. Sit down with them and discuss the failure. Analyze it.
As a parent, I see how difficult this is. It's easier to take the easy route and do it for a child rather than to let them accomplish something I know they won't succeed in. But this is essential.
I just saw this a few days ago when report cards came out. I typed in comments. Truthful comments. None were negative. But many included constructive criticism, and I saw many students struggle with those comments.
Why?
My first inclination is to believe that they've been coddled and given everything. But I don't think that's true. I just had to sit down with them and have that conversation about their 'failure' as they saw it.
But parents are just as guilty.
They will come in and see that their child has a 95%. They will scan down the list 40 assignments and find the three that the student forgot to turn in or did incorrectly and they'll focus on those four zeros as opposed to the A's and B's.
They ask right away about the four assignments and forget all about the final grade.
Until we have a conversation about this being a college level class and that these kids are insanely buys and despite being in the top half of their class they are still just kids. That means sometimes they forget to hand in work or to meet deadlines or follow directions.
They are kids who have been insulated from failure. But it's better for them to experience now than in college or the workforce.
But the sad thing is that they will face failure in both places. I just hope they have the skills to bounce back and recover instead of just trying to avoid failure. Or having Mom and Dad try to protect them their entire lives.
As a teacher this is an essential thing to do, but as a parent, this is not an easy thing to do.
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Stop Acting Your Age and Embrace Your Inner Child
I couldn't have said it better myself!
This has some good tips to get us out of our old fuddy-duddy comfort zones and to think like children again. What I love about kids is that they live in constant state of shock.
I especially like the last tip "Try Something That Might Not Work." That pretty much explains my teaching style!
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And finally one of the best things I've watched in a long, long time. Not only is Dean Kamen remarkable but so are the people he works so hard to help.
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