Many people seem to dislike the idea that parents have a say in what gets taught in school. It's difficult to find a fully reasoned position among the fear-mongering and shield-banging on both sides of this issue. Many parents select independent schools as a form of having that say, either through the school's established curriculum, or because the school is more receptive to family involvement than other options might be (and at independent schools, the "consumer model" is already a reality, despite our desire to also create community and the important equity issues in determining who has access). Personally, I know that parents have a lot of ideas and resources to offer that can make a program and curriculum much more interesting....the problem I've encountered is how to tell people "thanks but no thanks" without them getting upset (maybe that's because of my lack of skill in communication). (New York Times)
Progressive educational thinkers like Alfie Kohn have been telling us for years about the dangers of praise - even of "effort praise" that centers around effort instead of results - because it turns children into Pavlovian dogs who work for the praise instead of their intrinsic interest. This is excellent advice, but the resulting challenge has been to find ways to communicate our respect and admiration for their thinking and learning. At TBS, our response has been to ask children to engage in high-level reflection around their work, and to build their capacity to evaluate themselves rather than seek out validation externally. Perhaps using praise focused on the neurological effects of hard work is also worth investigating. (Washington Post)
What is there to say about lesson study? That it's awesome. The opportunity to observe another teacher and then engage in collaborative conversation about the decisions and actions that she or he made is as close to the clinical model of supervision established in the medical field, and one that both has proven results, and that participants cite as transformative to their work. Let's do it! (WBEZ 91.5)
Parents sometimes wonder how we can effectively evaluate a child in middle school when we don't give grades, and how we know a child is effectively learning. I have a whole soapbox speech on the intellectual dishonesty of grades, but for a change of pace, here's an example of a school that does a part of what we do; while they do give grades, they simply don't allow students to fail. Instead of getting a "0" for a missed assignment and moving on to the next thing, that work is marked incomplete until it is finished. (Statesman Journal)
I have very mixed feelings about the length of the school day for kindergarten students. I'm not sure I believe the claims that it will lead to increased academic success - from my direct observation and experience, those little beings are often so tired from the mental and emotional energy of the morning that the quality of learning in the afternoons is not necessarily high. I do appreciate that they want to find time to provide more opportunities for play, though. (The Tennessean)
When I was an English teacher, I loved asking questions to stimulate student thinking, though I always knew my approach was not a traditional Socratic method, since I integrated many other teaching practices. So I'm not surprised that someone thinks the Socratic Method isn't right for every student in every situation; a diverse set of pedagogic techniques is the only way to be sure to reach all learners. I just wonder why people become dogmatically wedded to one particular way of doing things (like the Harvard Business School's use of case studies). (Time)
No comments:
Post a Comment