Here's a guest post from Kevin on his education views.
I've been reading quite a bit about education for a number of years. My influences include Rafe Esquith (video), John Taylor Gatto, John Holt, and Sir Ken Robinson (video), among others.
Let's start with Gatto.
The number one thing that struck me from Gatto was the systemic limitations of school.
Almost without exception, whether you choose public, private, or charter schools, each student will be faced with the structure of school which has a number of disadvantages:
1. Students are grouped by age rather than ability.
In no other area except for school that I can think of are people segregated according to age. I think this has a major impact on class discipline, behaviour, and most importantly, rate of learning. When a teacher is faced with 25 9 year olds of varying ability, how do you teach? Wouldn't it make more sense to work with 25 students who are working at a 5th grade level, regardless of age? Of course, holding students back is politically impossible these days so teachers just move kids ahead to get rid of the problem.
Given the differences of ability, a majority of teachers will teach to the middle. What are the chances your child is in the middle? (None. Your child, of course, is Gifted. Capital G.)
2. Class structure
School is divided into periods of a set time length. What this communicates is that the work being done is not important, the schedule is. When you work at home or at the job, do you ever get into the flow and time passes so quickly you don't even notice? How would you like it if 8 minutes in, a bell rang and you were forced to vacate your workspace and move to something else? How effective would you be? Bells and schedules do not allow for children to learn to value and enjoy their work. No one else values it, the most important thing is the logistics of handling hundreds or thousands of students in a day.
3. Assignments
School is based on assignments. Do this, due such and such, according to these guidelines. It is color by numbers work. Real work is not like this. Parameters are vague if they exist at all. Due dates are mostly just to have a deadline to turn something in, because tomorrow would be the ideal time of completion. Usually, we have a goal and we have to determine how we are going to accomplish it. Goal: Increase awareness of volleyball team's car wash fund raiser on Saturday. Okay, how will we do that?
4. Teaching
Perhaps my biggest problem with school is teaching. Autocratic, top down teaching. I cannot find the quote now, but one of the authors said that the worst part of teaching is it robs the student of the opportunity to learn. Both Holt and Gatto believe that when a student wants to learn, learning occurs at a much faster pace than when it is being taught without any interest from the student. This certainly parallels my own experience. I feel that I've been a much more effective learner since graduating college, and that I learned more in college than in high school.
I went to public school for 12 years. How much of Biology do I use? How much time spent memorizing facts from history that have no relevance and are at my fingertips on the internet? And how efficient was my learning? It has been reported that, for the motivated student, it takes 30 hours to learn to read. One school week. So how much time are we wasting 'teaching' topics and subjects that our students have no interest in, and no need to learn?
I think that humans are learning machines. We learn to walk, talk, eat, without any instruction at all. We see those around us do it, and we want to do those things as well. It is the same with reading, writing, speaking, math, etc. These skills are means to an end, whether it be to 'be an adult' or to learn to be a marine biologist.
I think we need to expose our children to a wide range of activities, vocations, people, and cultures so that their inherent gifts and interests can lead them to learn what they want as deeply as they care to. Certainly, there should be some guidance, and a person that flits from subject to subject will not develop any mastery at all, but how different is this from normal schooling anyway? It's not as if high school can adequately prepare you for any vocation which requires technical expertise. In fact, I have a difficult time thinking of what high school can prepare you for, other than the next step in the educational ladder, if that.
You want to blow your mind and expose your prejudices? Read about the Sudbury valley school.
Read in front of your children. Use mathematics. Explain the world using adult vocabulary and themes. Kids want to be big. Don't dumb down the world, and they will rise to understand it and move independently through it.
Next time we'll discuss Esquith and how his teaching is so different from what you are likely to encounter at your neighborhood school.
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