Ken Robinson Explained on a Dry Erase Board
Have you seen this.?
It’s almost 12 minutes long but really worth watching all the way through. It’s a fast and fun 12 minutes.
I would like to hear what Sammy, Paris and the other teachers on here think, as well everyone else. I don’t think it was already posted but even if it was, you should watch it again!
Comments
I love these RSA animations. They’re all so goddam fantastic. The Slavoj Zizek one on charity floored me.
That was so good. I hate that we’re left without answers, though. Like, what do those of us who plan to have kids someday do? How do I combat this nonsense?
The part about ADHD is how I’ve always seen it. There are reasons why the population can’t focus anymore. By being a 26-year-old, I’ve lived during the giant boom of technology. And I can readily admit that I can’t get work done as well as I used to.
As for how to deal with the anaesthetic problem with turning off students’ senses, the best I can do at this point is give wild variety to my subject matter. I can’t find use for the class laptops all the time. And of course, I’m in a school that actually has class laptops.
But I can have them on their feet, I can use some videos, they can act stuff out, etc. Though honestly, some kids hate school so much, they don’t even want to do the fun stuff I plan. That’s probably another part to the “gene pool of education” concept. It’s damn near instinctual to hate school.
I really liked the part about industrialization of education. I completely agree that students are all on different levels in different subjects and work best at different times and in different sizes. The best response to that is the advent of the “honors” track, but that hardly addresses this diversity.
My school is pretty good with placing students (but it’s a small special education school). Not in my wildest dreams can I see public education changing like this. It probably won’t happen until the current generation comes into voting power.
As a lone teacher, I simply don’t have that kind of sway. Even when the fellow faculty agrees on progressive changes, it never gets further than the faculty meeting, because the administration and county boards are pushing standardized tests, curriculum maps, and pacing charts.
The best I can do (without falling too far behind), is throw in something creative once a week at best. We can have an open-ended discussion on horror movies and the connection to American Gotchic literature. We can fold up origami and find the changes in area. Sometimes I just start a unit with small groups trying to solve problems that they have no idea how to solve, just to see what they come up with.
In my math classes, as students have proven themselves on tests, I’ve granted them independence. At this stage, the students (who are pretty much the real math lovers) can work through problems on their own, as long as the continue to prove their understanding at certain chapter milestones.
So I definitely see the need for change, and do what I can, but I’ll always have the standards and testing breathing down my neck.
That’s pretty enlightening, Paris. It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if home schooling is worth the lack of socializing or if there are private schools out there that fix some of these issues.
Wow Paris thanks! That’s what I wanted to hear.
And John I hear you about thoughts on homeschooling. Out of all the homeschooled kids I know, none of them are anti-social weirdos. And if any are, they are not as bad as some of the anti-social weirdos I went to school with. One formerly homeschooled friend (who is one of my most well-rounded friends) likes to bring up that kids do not need to be around other kids the same age to be social. Even my cousins who were homeschooled for religious reasons are interesting, successful, well socialized adults. I think it really depends on the kid and the parent and could be a lot of fun.
I dunno, man. I’ve met my share of home-schooled kids and they were all huge weirdos.
Do you remember if those weirdos had weirdos for parents? When I think of the weirdos from grade school, I remember their parents also being weirdos. And who do we really get our social skills from? From our families, I think.
I can’t think of any right now, but are there any cases of homeschooled kids killing their parents? Most school shootings occur from alienated schoolchildren. In the long run, I think it should be up to the parents and the kid to figure out what is right for everyone. Hopefully we will always have these options.