School is in Session
Education has been on my mind a lot lately. First off, my wife and I have been looking at pre-schools for our son. Picking a pre-school is somewhat like buying a house -- you walk through prospective locations trying to imagine if you (or your kid) would be comfortable there. One of our first visits was to a factory-like campus with a insanely controlling director who talked up the Reggio Emelia method, the new "hip" method of teaching. The director said things like "if a child wants to do math, we will not discourage them from pursuing it." Come on, my kid's gonna be 2 or 3 when he enters pre-school. Of course, he's a genius, but math? Another friend gave me a pointer about avoiding a certain pre-school that lost her kid -- twice.
My sister in-law is a teacher and we were talking a little about how media is used in the classroom experience. When I was in grade school, I thought filmstrips were the best thing ever. I probably learned more from those presentations than anything else the teacher said. Today, DVDs and videos are sometimes used, and some schools even have computers hooked up to TV monitors. But the sad fact is that our current educational system and the No Child Left Behind Act has turned our teachers into test prep tutors and our students into mindless memory machines. Teachers are so worried about their students failing tests that they can't concentrate on the art of teaching and maybe get through to the students who need them the most.
I went to some pretty regimented grade and junior high/high schools growing up where they followed this approach. The sole goal was to get the best grade and prepare you for a good college. Well, when I finally had a choice, I bucked the system and chose a college where I could be involved in the process of learning. It made all the difference.
That was a different era. Since then, people say that our education system is broken. They're right. But I'm afraid that our government leaders don't understand that times have changed. They think that if we throw money at the problem and encourage reading that things will get better.
The problem is that our students have changed. Nobody really reads books anymore. They watch TV and play video games and chat on IM. Their attention span has shortened. Now whether or not you think that's a bad thing, it doesn't really matter -- the fact is that students (and learning) are different; so we need to use different tools. We need to encourage actions like this and stop trying to shove Moby Dick down kid's throats. Just because they don't know the answer to Question 8D on the English section of the PSAT doesn't mean they won't make it in today's world.
We need to learn how to teach again.
My sister in-law is a teacher and we were talking a little about how media is used in the classroom experience. When I was in grade school, I thought filmstrips were the best thing ever. I probably learned more from those presentations than anything else the teacher said. Today, DVDs and videos are sometimes used, and some schools even have computers hooked up to TV monitors. But the sad fact is that our current educational system and the No Child Left Behind Act has turned our teachers into test prep tutors and our students into mindless memory machines. Teachers are so worried about their students failing tests that they can't concentrate on the art of teaching and maybe get through to the students who need them the most.
I went to some pretty regimented grade and junior high/high schools growing up where they followed this approach. The sole goal was to get the best grade and prepare you for a good college. Well, when I finally had a choice, I bucked the system and chose a college where I could be involved in the process of learning. It made all the difference.
That was a different era. Since then, people say that our education system is broken. They're right. But I'm afraid that our government leaders don't understand that times have changed. They think that if we throw money at the problem and encourage reading that things will get better.
The problem is that our students have changed. Nobody really reads books anymore. They watch TV and play video games and chat on IM. Their attention span has shortened. Now whether or not you think that's a bad thing, it doesn't really matter -- the fact is that students (and learning) are different; so we need to use different tools. We need to encourage actions like this and stop trying to shove Moby Dick down kid's throats. Just because they don't know the answer to Question 8D on the English section of the PSAT doesn't mean they won't make it in today's world.
We need to learn how to teach again.
posted by Lou at 8:30 PM
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