By Allan Alach
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come
across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.
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| Do we want more of the same in Education? |
This week’s homework!
Education Reform: A National Delusion
An article from USA, but then again, since we
unquestionably follow USA education policy, its relevant all over.
“As
I watch the education "debate" in America I wonder if we have simply
lost our minds. In the cacophony of reform chatter -- online programs, charter
schools, vouchers, testing, more testing, accountability, Common Core,
value-added assessments, blaming teachers, blaming tenure, blaming unions,
blaming parents -- one can barely hear the children crying out: "Pay
attention to us!”’
How To Get Great Teachers
US blogger Peter Greene:
“If
you really want to put a great teacher in front of every child, then you need
to preserve and enhance a vision of teaching that gives teachers control over
their fate, their teaching environment,
Ineffective Forever
Another blog by Peter Greene, sounding off at
the ineffective teacher refrain that is being used to attack the profession
around the world and particularly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon countries of
England, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA.
Is this a coincidence? What do
you think?
“In
other words, by focusing on a bogus definition of effectiveness, you actually
have no idea of which teachers are great for a particular classroom. It's not
just that the reformster definition of effective is unjust and unfair; its
innate wrongness will actively thwart any attempts to make anything better.
It's almost-- almost-- as if reformsters actually want public schools to fail.”
On teaching and learning of literacy
Excellent article by reading expert Ken Goodman,
contrasting the way children actually learn to read, with the commonly held
notion of the technocrats.
“While
young children are remarkably able to learn language, they are notably much
less able to deal with abstraction. No wonder then they do not succeed well in
learning sets of abstractions which not only are what they are taught but which
are reified as reading in their tests.”
Teaching can be stressful -- children's lives are at stake
“Yes,
teaching can be that stressful. Children’s lives are at stake.
I am not making this up. Psychotherapist Carl Jung might well have
had teachers in mind when he proposed the archetype of the wounded
healer. Jung believed that, in relating to patients, an analyst can take on their pain, a phenomenon that can be both positive and
negative. I know that this experience is part of the psyche of teachers.
Teachers take on students’ wounds to gain the
blessing: student learning.”
Creativity and education
“Teaching creatively and for creativity entails taking students on a creative journey where their responses are not predetermined. Teaching for creativity means that students will be producing ideas that may well involve novelty and possibly, experimentation. Teachers and students involved in teaching for creativity will be engaged with processes and although products may well be important it is in the process of creation where the true focus lies.”
This week’s contributions from
What I've Learned During 10 Years In The Classroom
“After
all, some things stick with us, becoming our sacred tenets about teaching and
learning, shaping our personal and professional lives in profound ways.
Whether you’ve finished your first
year, tenth, or fifteenth year in the classroom, the summer weeks (or months,
if you are lucky) provide us educators a great opportunity to reflect upon and
catalog those ideas, ideals, and insights we carry forward from year to year.”
The Right to Learn - an agenda for the 21stC; challenging the status
quo.
Another from Bruce’s oldies but goodies file, looking at the role of technology in education.
“What
is required is to dramatically change the way in which teachers teach and
children learn - technology will be the key to this transformation.Technology
makes personalisation of learning, and child-centred learning, ideals of
earlier days, possible.”
The art of making learning fun with drama, music and visual arts
“The
program pairs local artists with classroom teachers to develop creative ways to
teach some of the drier or more confusing parts of the core curriculum. The
teachers identify the concepts that their students struggle with most, and the
artists help develop new ways to visualize or act out those ideas.”
Employers’ Challenge
to Educators: Make School Relevant to Students’ Lives
Bruce comments: An excellent insight into 21stC
education – schools as dream realizers. (Also suggested by Phil Cullen.)
‘“Students
are the power tools of change in education,” Miller
said. “They
are the most ignored and they have the most at stake.” But,
as Olin has found, when they are given free range to design, make and innovate
they can be very powerful examples of what a great education can produce.’
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| Young Einstein? |
This week’s contributions from
Phil Cullen:
Why can't schools focus on the whole child again?
Also suggested by Bruce!
“What
has happened to us in our country that we have forgotten that education can be
such a joy? How did it all become such a deadly grind? I am inspired by the
Green School in a way that I
have rarely been inspired by any institution – so
much so that I am already making concrete inquiries about getting my kids into
the place.”
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| Green School Bali |
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