Calling all Educators

[LostMyMap]

And those becoming educators. Spacey, this means you, sweetie.

Just thought I'd pass this along. This is a really great video on the state of education:

YouTube - RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

This one covers the current way and how it's outdated. I hope there is another part somewhere that goes into more details on what the new way would look like.

And the speaker's web site: Sir Ken Robinson

He's got a couple of interesting books too.

[James81]

That drawing was cool. I agree with the sentiment of what he is saying.

I also intend to operate under that assumption that there are
no stupid kids, only ineffective educators as part of my education career.

[spacecadetglow]

Going to watch the video in a sec but I just had to comment on this...

Originally Posted by James81

That drawing was cool. I agree with the sentiment of what he is saying.

I also intend to operate under that assumption that there are
no stupid kids, only ineffective educators as part of my education career.

I feel like this is a dangerous stance to take, as an educator. After having worked in education for several years now, there are definitely students that just won't get it, no matter how many different ways you explain it, and it's not the fault of the educator. I remember for one tutoring session I had, I went in completely determined to make this person *get it*, using every methodology that I knew, and the session ended with him banging his laptop down on the desk and breaking it. This guy was in his 40s and I'm pretty sure had a learning disability, though. Actually I think he was just a crack baby.

Anyway, I like to take the stance that not everyone is cut out for education. Sad but true. That doesn't mean you shouldn't always try your best, but give yourself some leeway because sometimes, there really is nothing you can do.

[veloci]

I do feel like minoring in something for education. It is only for the experience in teaching. The current education system is quite outdated compare to all the technology that could make it better. Then there's the stupid national testing that indirectly forces most teachers to teach the skills to beat the tests. >_>

[spacecadetglow]

Originally Posted by veloci

I do feel like minoring in something for education. It is only for the experience in teaching. The current education system is quite outdated compare to all the technology that could make it better. Then there's the stupid national testing that indirectly forces most teachers to teach the skills to beat the tests. >_>

I'm not against teaching kids how to pass standardized tests. I'm not even particularly against standardized tests, I think they are a reasonable way to measure critical thinking skills. Though in Florida the FCAT has come close to eclipsing regular education... Jeb Bush can suck it. The whole way the test is set up is bunk, and the reward system for schools that already do well is no way to help the most high-need areas.

Thanks for getting me even more pumped to take on these issues in grad school, LMM.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by veloci

The current education system is quite outdated compare to all the technology that could make it better.

It always bothers me that many people see problems in the educational system and think, "Technology can fix this!" I've long felt that that attitude was the quintessence of why technologists should study long and hard before they try to change a broken system.

Here's a technologist who's arguably doing a lot more good:
Peter Thiel Has New Initiative To Pay Kids To “Stop Out Of School”
Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education.

But this is the college level, rather than the elementary school level.

[VinceG]

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher, by John Taylor Gatto

[James81]

Originally Posted by spacecadetglow

Going to watch the video in a sec but I just had to comment on this...



I feel like this is a dangerous stance to take, as an educator. After having worked in education for several years now, there are definitely students that just won't get it, no matter how many different ways you explain it, and it's not the fault of the educator. I remember for one tutoring session I had, I went in completely determined to make this person *get it*, using every methodology that I knew, and the session ended with him banging his laptop down on the desk and breaking it. This guy was in his 40s and I'm pretty sure had a learning disability, though. Actually I think he was just a crack baby.

Anyway, I like to take the stance that not everyone is cut out for education. Sad but true. That doesn't mean you shouldn't always try your best, but give yourself some leeway because sometimes, there really is nothing you can do.

I wouldn't call it "dangerous." (LOL)

I get your point, but I think it'll be more effective for me to believe that I can convey my point in different ways so they'll understand than it'll be for me to hold to the idea that "ah, well, if the techniques I *know* about don't work, then they must be stupid."

I think the difference for me is that I will ultimately remain detached from the *need* for them to get it. I'll probably through out every trick in the book to get kids to understand the material, so if a few of them don't get it after that, then that's fine.

On the other hand, if I see a kid struggling with the material and I don't currently know a technique that is getting through to him/her, then that's going to send me researching other teaching techniques.

[Acolyte]

There's a good point in the video, and I can confirm that it is valid from my personal experience. While at university years ago, I was mostly playing online games on the computer instead of doing assignments and learning things because they were boring and/or hard to understand.

[180]

This video verbalizes with a great deal of accuracy the current problems and issues concerning general education beyond the public school system. The theories and the methods educators used to teach are actually very poor and antiquated methods.

As an ESL teacher I've taken degrees in TESOL which are fundamentally all rooted in pedagogical theories, which unfortunately are neither definitive or measurable in terms of success. Teachers of ESL tend to ascribe to multiple theories and cling to any one of them at a certain time. One day we might believe that teaching children based on memorization is superior and the next day we might decide to give children a passage to translate from their native language to English. While this does give us a huge does of flexibility it fails to standardized proper and effective methods of teaching because of inconsistency from teacher to teacher and day to day lectures. Math otherwise has a strict system of conditioning that includes memorization, theorem practice, and presentation. Languages do not, yet hold more if not, pertinent significant in our everyday lives (without mocking the importance of math)

One of the huge holes in our society is our undedicated apathy to discovering and molding younger generations. How lax have we become in considering the messages we give to young children not only in our school systems, but also by exposure to web and social expectations. Too often our children are fostered without proper care given to teaching them importance of survival techniques, rather we harp on issues such as what year was George Washington born? Wouldn't it be much more practical to tell a child how to balance a checkbook? How to fill out taxes? Or how about teaching children how to co-operate and learn to work well with others? How about the things that matter such as, how to get along with a wife? How to make people around you happy? Such are much more important ideals we strive for but are ill prepared and unadapted for the real world.

One of the by far, larger and more pressing issues of our generation is the increased amount of bullying, we rightfully should blame parents, but also our education system and political system for failing to instill values to our children. It's not the teachers, nor the principals, rather the blame falls on society as a whole, corporations, parents, and legislators for their inability to properly monitor and censor exposure to improper values and ideas. For those of us who are older, if they remember the TV shows of the 70's most of them were family orientated and children focusing on behaving and being polite. People were civil much more 30 years ago. But I haven't ever come across any TV program now that purports the same family ideals and courtesy we once had. Now we see things such as "Jersey Shore" (which I haven't seen) but clearly seems to idealize partying, tanning, and inordinate amount of venereal diseased sex.

How does the advent of more material goods and pushes for commercialism have improved our lives? It hasn't, it's only increased our needs without compensating for the true ideals that would make us happy. Instead we become distracted by the conditioning propaganda by TV/Internet to seek out which that we think makes us happy, but rarely does.

[tod]

Our present educational system was designed by totalitarians (the philosophical forerunners of the Nazis) with one intention: to create obedient workers.

Education needs a major injection of freedom and new thinking to stop it from crippling young minds.

I wanted to communicate how horrible the schools are, what their true purpose is, as well as some very important personal growth lessons. So I wrote a novel called Solo Flight.

You can read the entire book for free if you're interested in these issues. It's not long, and it's been eye-opening for many people, both in the education field and the personal development field.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by tod

it's been eye-opening for many people, both in the education field and the personal development field.

I have to ask: when you say "field", do you refer to the students or the teachers?

[Servina]

Great video and as a secondary school teacher, I totally agree. The problem is in creating the system that will genuinely work.

It's really hard to get students to work in groups, as the speaker suggests when their social skills have been wrecked by too much screen time and inappropriate TV, such as Jerry Springer (on in the middle of the day?!?) and video games where they shoot things indiscriminately.

The ADHD issue is also contentious. It is environmental and getting students with this condition to co-operate is a nightmare.

Not sure how an education system could be designed that would prepare students for the modern workplace and suit their needs without massive spending, which is unavailable to both our governments right now.

Although, there is the alternative of just running the lessons differently, making them shorter and having more physical movement involved.

It's a big question.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Servina

Not sure how an education system could be designed that would prepare students for the modern workplace and suit their needs without massive spending, which is unavailable to both our governments right now.

Well, first: is "prepar[ing] students for the modern workplace" a good goal to have?

If not, then what's the real goal? "[Suiting] their needs?" What are their needs? How do we meet them?

And after you've answered that, how much money would it cost?

[Michael Chui]

Thought of this thread when I re-read this today:

I walked into the office of PSCS founder Andy Smallman and asked him, “Are we an alternative school?”

“No,” he said.

“I know that, but what do you say when people ask that question?”

“Alternative schools use alternative strategies for helping kids understand geography and science and math and literature,” he said. “That’s not our product.”

“What’s our product?”

“Our product is this environment,” he said. “We provide a safe, loving, nurturing environment in which kids feel connected to a caring community, then we surround them with people of high character who are excited about life and excited about learning. Then we partner with them to help them figure out what they love to do, what brings them joy.”

I stood in his doorway for what seemed like an eternity, staring blankly. School is not, first and foremost, about the transfer of academic content from teacher to student. School should be about surrounding kids with role models who help them identify and pursue their signature strengths. School is about the journey from childhood to adulthood. Academics become a by-product of this process.

The big idea Re-educate Seattle

[spacecadetglow]

Nicely said, Michael! You're getting me excited to teach. I hope I can find someplace like pscs...

[Clover]

Originally Posted by spacecadetglow

Going to watch the video in a sec but I just had to comment on this...



I feel like this is a dangerous stance to take, as an educator. After having worked in education for several years now, there are definitely students that just won't get it, no matter how many different ways you explain it, and it's not the fault of the educator. I remember for one tutoring session I had, I went in completely determined to make this person *get it*, using every methodology that I knew, and the session ended with him banging his laptop down on the desk and breaking it. This guy was in his 40s and I'm pretty sure had a learning disability, though. Actually I think he was just a crack baby.

Anyway, I like to take the stance that not everyone is cut out for education. Sad but true. That doesn't mean you shouldn't always try your best, but give yourself some leeway because sometimes, there really is nothing you can do.

Yes, it's a fairly traditional response to modern education: 'The system' doesn't work, every kid can learn, the fault of educators, administrators, blahblahblah.

As a language teacher, I passionately believe in every kid reaching his or her potential, but at the same time, society, as a group of taxpayers, needs to mature and realise that this doesn't mean providing a technologically advanced, individualised infotainment playground for each and every child. It means setting up broad parameters and hoping the majority can read and write at the end of it.

[faithsdaddy]

I agree very strongly with Ken Robinson's viewpoint. The biggest hurdle faced is to change the very way that learning occurs. Most 'educators' are conditioned to believe in certain models- knowledge of specific teaching methods is what they bring to the table. A far more useful skill would be to be able to recognise the needs of the individual. To teach the child to be the best expression of themselves (those who say kids are 'unteachable' are a testimony to the pass/ fail attitude of the education system.). To help them find themselves. To teach themselves. To encourage a lifelong love of learning.

But this isn't going to happen anytime soon. Not while schools are so geared up to testing. Schools over here have had a lot of time off, what with the royal wedding, etc. My stepson was given so much homework (Sats coming up) during these holidays, that he had to study for at least an hour each day. He is 11. That is not right and it's not fair. Kids should be kids and school destroys that.

The time commitment of 6 hours per day for well over a decade- should be overkill to producing an intellectual machine. Each kid should know loads about most things, be able to learn anything in a flash, digest reams of information in a single sitting and have a brain like a supercomputer. Their sheer genius should have been found and each of them capable of changing the world. But that doesn't happen. Imagine paying a grand at a garage, for them to not fix your car. You wouldn't stand for it, but that's what's happening with education. They are losing their childhood to school, with nothing to show for it.

I think school is child abuse.

[Brutha]

I don't really think that it's a question of money or a question of technology.

It's a question of ideas. It doesn't cost much to learn facts via a spaced repetition system such as Anki.
You could call Anki a technology but it's a mischaracterization. Anki isn't very complicated.

Anki doesn't really have a place in the classroom. It doesn't fit in. It's no problem of technology, it's a problem of culture.

Mnemonics is a similar issue. Our skills are unfit to teach it even when it makes it much easier to memorize facts.

I think the last English class that I had to take at school worsened my English. During class I heard a lot of wrong English expression and I catched myself with copying some of them.
Bringing different people who all can't speak the language together with the intent of them learning the language is madness.
Our normal way to learn languages is about copying other people. We don't want to copy people who can't speak the language.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Clover

society, as a group of taxpayers, needs to mature and realise that this doesn't mean providing a technologically advanced, individualised infotainment playground for each and every child.

Repeating that for emphasis.

Originally Posted by Clover

It means setting up broad parameters and hoping the majority can read and write at the end of it.

Actually, I think literacy is the wrong goal. Communication is the goal you're looking for; literacy is a side-effect.

[Clover]

Originally Posted by Michael Chui

Actually, I think literacy is the wrong goal. Communication is the goal you're looking for; literacy is a side-effect.

Hmm, I would disagree because literacy leads to the ability to self-direct further learning.

Originally Posted by brutha

I think the last English class that I had to take at school worsened my English. During class I heard a lot of wrong English expression and I catched myself with copying some of them.
Bringing different people who all can't speak the language together with the intent of them learning the language is madness.
Our normal way to learn languages is about copying other people. We don't want to copy people who can't speak the language.

It's not ideal, and any language teacher would admit that, but students can't / won't pay for private tuition. A good teacher will maximise the accurate input while minimising the crap. But, yes, up to a point. If the people you are learning with have the same first language as you, you'll all be making the same errors anyway, so it's not a huge issue. Most error comes from L1 interference rather than incorrect modelling.

Originally Posted by faithsdaddy

The time commitment of 6 hours per day for well over a decade- should be overkill to producing an intellectual machine. Each kid should know loads about most things, be able to learn anything in a flash, digest reams of information in a single sitting and have a brain like a supercomputer. Their sheer genius should have been found and each of them capable of changing the world. But that doesn't happen. Imagine paying a grand at a garage, for them to not fix your car. You wouldn't stand for it, but that's what's happening with education. They are losing their childhood to school, with nothing to show for it.

I think school is child abuse.

No, 6 hours a day for an intelligent adult would produce serious results, but six hours for a child is not overkill: their brains are developing and so it takes time for them to learn to read, count, and speak foreign languages, etc. Information must be repeated many many times. I guess it would be a great experiment to put children in school from the age of 14 to 18, when they had the neurological and cognitive maturity to absorb all the material, but then perhaps if they haven't formed the neural connections formed by doing language arts, maths, music, etc, at a young age, it would be unsuccessful? I doubt many parents would volunteer their darlings for that, though!

School is not child abuse, it's babysitting so that the parents can go out and work. It also gives them structure and community as well as the kind of education and facilities that the majority of people simply cannot provide for their children, themselves.

You really think an eleven year old can't deal with one hour of private study a day? Really? Kids in countries with higher comparative levels of ability in maths and literacy do far, far more. I think in the west, the cult of individuality and the desire to all be treated like the precious individual snowflakes we really are, with a childhood extended to at least the age of 25 has damaged us. We, in Britain, are simply not educated enough to compete with other countries, any more. If a child cannot deal with that amount of study at such an age, how will he manage to get into university or work, or run a business, in a few years' time? The habits he learns now will stick with him.

I teach at university level and the literacy levels of students (grown adults, with A-Levels (high school leaving diploma level, in Britain) is a joke, and yet in recent decades, our government has invested more in education than ever before. There is often little difference in academic writing ability in English between the British 19 year olds and the EFL students! I attribute this to lower standards in testing, and lack of time spent reading and engaging with language on an individual basis. People can't learn to do an individual thing such as reading or writing, solely in a group.

Kids and parents take less and less personal responsibility, while helicoptoring over schools and teachers more than ever. Kid not achieving? Someone must be to 'blame'. Can't be me or my kid, and the teacher seems decent enough, so it must be the ''system'. Yawwwwwn.

[faithsdaddy]

Clover- I think an hour per day is too much, given that they're meant to be on holiday. For it to be a holiday, it needs to be a break. A childhood should be about more than school, but how can it be if they are restricted so heavily by it's structure. Also, it's very easy to do more than a school can achieve, with a fraction of the time. If school were to finish at lunch time, that would be a start.

I agree that literacy standards are poor. I don't think it needs more time spending on it, just for that time to be better spent.

[Clover]

Originally Posted by faithsdaddy

Clover- I think an hour per day is too much, given that they're meant to be on holiday. For it to be a holiday, it needs to be a break. A childhood should be about more than school, but how can it be if they are restricted so heavily by it's structure. Also, it's very easy to do more than a school can achieve, with a fraction of the time. If school were to finish at lunch time, that would be a start.

I agree that literacy standards are poor. I don't think it needs more time spending on it, just for that time to be better spent.

Children learn very slowly because they are adding things to a non-existent framework.

If it were easy to achieve what a school was achieving, with the same amount of children (not everyone has the money, time, pedagogic knowledge, or education to educate their children to the extent where they can inspire children in different subjects), then people would do it. There is no conspiracy by 'the man' to keep your child in a public school system: anyone is free to homeschool or make private provision for education, as long as the children are not being neglected.

Yes, you probably could cram the content of 6 hours into three hours, but the kid would lose breaktimes (valuable), sports (valuable),

I believe an hour a day isn't enough. A childhood should be balanced, absolutely, but British children do very few hours, almost no homework, and have long vacations and because of this, they don't stack up, internationally, particularly in terms of maths, science and technology. In our universities, most high-level research posts are filled from overseas because we simply don't have the snaps.

Literacy needs TIME, starting at five or six (later or sooner, depending on aptitude and interest, although schools cannot really concern themselves with this, outside of expensive Montessori-style provision). Schools can help, but basically, it's the child and the parents' responsibility. A school can provide basic tuition, a government can provide limited library facilities, but basically it's about culture, both at the family level and the social level. There is now little 'shame' in misspelling words, poor handwriting, etc, etc. Children are taught to 'communicate', to 'express themselves', 'to solve problems', etc, but not to receive and analyse written information, to see patterns, to slog and rote learn, accuracy and attention to detail, amongst other things.

Children are taught that there are 'no rules', that how they feel is prime. Relaxation, individual expression. That's fine if your parents' income and the GDP of your country supports that kind of individuality. When raising children who can be doctors, aeronautical engineers, translators, etc, we're playing catch-up with the rest of the world.

Children should be taught to fail, to meet too-difficult deadlines and standards, to work their nuts off, to TRY. British kids don't have to do any of that because the standards of the tests are so low. That's the problem with the system, not that they have tests at all.

[faithsdaddy]

Originally Posted by Clover

Children learn very slowly because they are adding things to a non-existent framework.
Interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way.


If it were easy to achieve what a school was achieving, with the same amount of children (not everyone has the money, time, pedagogic knowledge, or education to educate their children to the extent where they can inspire children in different subjects), then people would do it. There is no conspiracy by 'the man' to keep your child in a public school system: anyone is free to homeschool or make private provision for education, as long as the children are not being neglected.
It is easy (much of my point). You don't need specialist teaching skills, just some (un)common sense, a little research and hard work. We were almost not free to homeschool. If Labour had stayed in power, homeschooling numbers would have gone right down.


Yes, you probably could cram the content of 6 hours into three hours, but the kid would lose breaktimes (valuable), sports (valuable),
No fun if it's rushed. Breaktimes- they have as much time as they want, plus not being restricted with homework. As for sports- come on.. what sports? Are they getting the hour a day of fitness they should? An unforgivable omission.


I believe an hour a day isn't enough. A childhood should be balanced, absolutely, but British children do very few hours, almost no homework, and have long vacations and because of this, they don't stack up, internationally, particularly in terms of maths, science and technology. In our universities, most high-level research posts are filled from overseas because we simply don't have the snaps.
Lamentably, I must agree that Britain is falling behind much of the rest of the world Childhood is not 'balanced' if they have to spend the best part of the day stuck in a building. Even my 3 hours per day proposal isn't really balanced- just a begrudging compromise. The best would be to teach a child 'enough', then await inspiration for the rest. If you do a good job as a parent, that inspiration will be forthcoming and they will want to learn- y'know- for fun.


Literacy needs TIME, starting at five or six (later or sooner, depending on aptitude and interest, although schools cannot really concern themselves with this, outside of expensive Montessori-style provision). Schools can help, but basically, it's the child and the parents' responsibility. A school can provide basic tuition, a government can provide limited library facilities, but basically it's about culture, both at the family level and the social level. There is now little 'shame' in misspelling words, poor handwriting, etc, etc. Children are taught to 'communicate', to 'express themselves', 'to solve problems', etc, but not to receive and analyse written information, to see patterns, to slog and rote learn, accuracy and attention to detail, amongst other things.
I had a reading age of 14 when I was 7. Frankly, I did only a few thing right. Simple principles add up to great effect. A child can learn basic literacy in under 100 hours, once they have the motivation, the rest follows. Of course, when you have the love of learning driven away, being a teacher must feel like Sisyphus.


Children are taught that there are 'no rules', that how they feel is prime. Relaxation, individual expression. That's fine if your parents' income and the GDP of your country supports that kind of individuality. When raising children who can be doctors, aeronautical engineers, translators, etc, we're playing catch-up with the rest of the world.
There's a time to knuckle down- if that's important to you. Maybe somewhere between 14-25. Maybe. Not before. Being true to yourself- really finding out who you are and what makes you tick, instead of allowing the padding and falsehood of school and other forms of conditioning to tar over the real you- that's an inspiring goal.

Doctors- after they've taken their hypocritical oath, they attempt to cure by cutting, poisoning or burning. Again, sidestep the mess with a better alternative. Healthy lifestyle will fix far more than the ol' slash and burn method.


Children should be taught to fail, to meet too-difficult deadlines and standards, to work their nuts off, to TRY. British kids don't have to do any of that because the standards of the tests are so low. That's the problem with the system, not that they have tests at all.
I suggest teaching them to succeed and to deal with failure. That's not how it's done in school though is it. Over here it's all gold stars and superficial praise. I taught my stepson to ignore the ego driven style of motivation. I was so proud when he came home and mocked his teacher for giving him a certificate for good behaviour.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Clover

Hmm, I would disagree because literacy leads to the ability to self-direct further learning.

People were more than capable of learning things before they invented letters and numbers to write it down with.

Don't get me wrong: I am a huge advocate of books and other symbologies, and I'm maybe 25% librarian in my brain make-up, but paying tribute to a method without understanding why you're doing so is useless. Literacy for the sake of "self-directed further learning" does not work. Self-directed further learning does not require literacy whatsoever.

[Clover]

faithsdaddy, you say that teaching doesn't require training, just common sense, yet in the paragraph earlier you respond:

Originally Posted by faithsdaddy

Children learn very slowly because they are adding things to a non-existent framework.
Interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way.

It's not 'interesting', it's common knowledge to a teacher. I know this because I studied teaching, and have taught 1000s of children, over a decade: knowledge of children's cognitive and other abilities at different abilities is important so that you are not wasting a child's time forcing it to 'learn' stuff it* can't deal with, but also so you aren't letting her / him learn to be a lazy under-achiever. The study of teaching and the experience of teaching allow the teacher move beyond 'common sense' and towards a way of designing programs that ensure that the middle mass reach a quantifiable level of basic achievement. At the end of the day, most homeschoolers are simply googling to support their own prejudices against the 'system', even though most of them have done very nicely out of the school system.

(*I wish there were still a gender neutral pronoun in English)

Also, I'm guessing the majority of parents on this site are at least of average intelligence (although you have to wonder about a group of people who self-select themselves as 'smart' ) and have more than average 'leisure time' to bring up their kids in an inspiring environment. Many many children do not have that luxuries and public schools pick up the slack.

Homeschooling, of course, can be amazing, but it can also be a front for religious whackos, sex offenders, and negligence towards children who are denied their potential because they don't have access to people who don't share their parents' enthusiasms. Admittedly, so can schools, but with more people involved, vulnerable children can be taken care of, to a limited extent. Labour were right to propose regulation of this, in my opinion.

Because I have taught your child's agegroup for a decade, I know what your child is thinking and experiencing both emotionally and intellectually. I know how your child learns at this point in his life. Next year, in secondary school, he'll have access to teachers with subject knowledge. Science graduates, German speakers, historians. The homeschooler needs an amazing network and a lot of money to provide that stuff, and it's not within the bounds of people without that network (my parents, for example). Now that isn't to negate parenthood: parents know their child's individual differences and come to them with love. That's a vital part of education. Schools and parents need to recognise and respect eachother's strengths without jumping all over eachother's weaknesses.

Originally Posted by faithsdaddy

There's a time to knuckle down- if that's important to you. Maybe somewhere between 14-25.

By 14, it's not impossible to catch up and become a mathematician or musician, but it's fairly unlike because the patterns for reward are already 'set'.

Originally Posted by faithsdaddy

Over here it's all gold stars and superficial praise. I taught my stepson to ignore the ego driven style of motivation. I was so proud when he came home and mocked his teacher for giving him a certificate for good behaviour.

That's just his age. He wants your approval so he mocks values which are contrary to yours, in your hearing. He'll be mocking whatever gets him social cachet in any group he wants to rise in for a good few years yet. It's called 'puberty'. Don't worry, he'll grow out of it, probably, when he's an adult which is generally accepted to be about the age of 25 in Britain ... . No-one ever got certificates for anything in my classes because it teaches children that I expect them to be shitheads and that I am going to attempt to buy their good behaviour. Bad behaviour earns punishment, good behaviour earns its own reward, as in the wider world.

Anyway, we obviously have different viewpoints, and my point is not to rant or to put down your opinions. It's nice to chat about this stuff with people who care.

[Clover]

Originally Posted by Michael Chui

People were more than capable of learning things before they invented letters and numbers to write it down with.

Don't get me wrong: I am a huge advocate of books and other symbologies, and I'm maybe 25% librarian in my brain make-up, but paying tribute to a method without understanding why you're doing so is useless. Literacy for the sake of "self-directed further learning" does not work. Self-directed further learning does not require literacy whatsoever.

Umm, it kind of does, unless you are simply trying to nail down your nan's scone recipe or learning to put up a tent. Literacy is a pre-requisite for the sake of reading books about complex things. If you want to know about law or computers or business or nursing, good luck doing that if you cant read.

Literacy is also pretty important for, say, reading and writing in threads about education on internet forums!

Perhaps we are all just conditioned by our parents. As a northern, working class Brit, schooling and education and reading were drilled into me as a way to escape drudgery and loss of our individuality. Richer moderners see public schooling as another tool of 'the man', not a wonderful resource we should treasure as a great social leveller.

[LostMyMap]

Originally Posted by Michael Chui

Literacy for the sake of "self-directed further learning" does not work.

Works for me all the time.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Clover

Umm, it kind of does, unless you are simply trying to nail down your nan's scone recipe or learning to put up a tent.

*sighs* If you want to learn something new, you should go out and do it. Book learning is always supplementary. To the extent that this topic happens to involved a literacy requirement, you do need to be literate. But think of this: one of our iconic Western philosophers, Socrates, never wrote a word for posterity. In fact, he actively chastised the usage of writing.

Quite frankly, the concept of "literacy" is useless. There doesn't exist a generic thing called literacy. I have been told several times that I have a mastery of the English language. Whoopdedoo: you walk me up to a Southerner and I'm going to struggle to understand what the hell they're talking about. Am I literate? No. I am not. You walk me up to an Iranian revolutionary and I'm going to fail to understand anything he says. Again, I am not literate. You walk me up to a hairstylist and ask me to describe my girlfriend's styling: I do not have the literacy to express it.

There is no such thing as generic literacy.

Originally Posted by Clover

Literacy is a pre-requisite for the sake of reading books about complex things. If you want to know about law or computers or business or nursing, good luck doing that if you cant read.

If you want to know about law, you should actually try getting a dozen people to agree to a set of guidelines. It's much easier if you're literate, but imagine how you'd do it without writing down those guidelines.

If you want to know about computers, you should take one apart and ask an electrician what all the little parts are. If he wants to toss you a book and scoot you out the door, then literacy seems like a great thing.

If you want to know about business, get some lemons, some sugar, and some water, stand on a corner during a hot day, and ask people if they'd like some lemonade for a nickel. What exactly are you reading and writing there?

If you want to know about nursing, you should spend a lot of times in hospitals, talking to the people who seem to know what they're doing, and asking a lot of questions of both the staff and the patients. If you need to administer chemicals, then literacy would be useful, but that's not what nursing is about.

Originally Posted by Clover

Literacy is also pretty important for, say, reading and writing in threads about education on internet forums!

Yes, but is reading and writing in threads about education on internet forums useful or purposeful, or is it just mental masturbation for wannabe reformers who think they can contribute something to the world, but instead of doing so, simply talk about doing so?

Originally Posted by Clover

Perhaps we are all just conditioned by our parents. As a northern, working class Brit, schooling and education and reading were drilled into me as a way to escape drudgery and loss of our individuality. Richer moderners see public schooling as another tool of 'the man', not a wonderful resource we should treasure as a great social leveller.

And I was brought up according to unconscious Confucian values about the necessity of having a Ph.D. to get ahead in the world. My parents continue to wish I would go to graduate school to increase my earning power, even though they care not a whit what I actually study. Oddly enough, I still don't feel a need to recite the party line on literacy because I've actually been confronted with the question of what it means and had to think critically about it.

I hear it's something educated people do.

Originally Posted by LostMyMap

Works for me all the time.

Really? The only reason you learned to read was so that you could learn more? Because, I will admit, some schooling paradigms do it that way, and that is the correct way. But the vast majority of schooling paradigms simply tell you to read because the teacher said to and I'm sure it'll be totally useful someday.

Literacy is what we use as a stand-in because no one's available to teach. It's an excuse for laziness because we've oriented our society around isolated ships sailing dark waters tied together by books and inter-networked routers and cellphone towers for the briefest, sparing signal light.

Stop reading. Get a life.

(P.S. What, no wisecrack about my signature yet?)

[spacecadetglow]

Well one thing I've learned as an educator is that children need structure. They thrive off of it. I'm not sure if faithsdaddy is proposing a total loosey-goosy system in which children just "do what they feel like," but in my experience, this is not effective education. They need some sort of direction and they need role models other than their parents. I also have to laugh at the notion that all teaching takes is "common sense." Try teaching ESL to a group of students that barely speaks English and within 5 minutes you will see that much more is required than common sense for a feat such as this. They don't offer masters and doctorate degrees in teaching for nothing.

I'm not an extremist when it comes to education, because I think such attitudes are irrational and unbalanced. Tell that to the child that is *actually* being abused at home, whose only refuge is school. You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

I had great experiences in public school. I also know lots of folds who didn't. So what? You can't make an assessment of an entire system based only on your own experiences or people you know. People love to do this because it makes the world more easily understandable to them, but there is always more to the story behind the judgment.

I support public school and I also support private school, homeschooling, and alternative models as an educator. I think it's great that parents have the option to decide what's best for their children. I don't know, complaining about the public school system when you lived in a developed first world country strikes me as I dunno, spoiled. Like "ugh, I hate mcdonalds hamburgers" when you have 6 other restaurants on the same road...