How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
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Re: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
#2Children want to learn, and if you dont beat out their love of learning by forcing them into a box that hardly anyone fits in, their inherent need to understand the world comes out.
Its almost... logical.
Re: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
#3Children want to learn, and if you dont beat out their love of learning by forcing them into a box that hardly anyone fits in, their inherent need to understand the world comes out. Its almost... logical.
Relevant Carl Sagan: "Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact." (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199601/carl-sagan?pa...)
Re: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
#4Children want to learn, and if you dont beat out their love of learning by forcing them into a box that hardly anyone fits in, their inherent need to understand the world comes out. Its almost... logical.
I am a fervent proponent for modern constructionistic learning environments, but affecting change in the current system is almost impossible. Some teachers are enthusiastic and willing to spend their own time to develop and implement these modern* ideas about learning, but in the end, one way or another, they have to conform to the traditional educational system. If it isn't for management that presses for better test results, parents that want good grades, children that cannot take to the new way (for whatever reason) it is the seemingly incommensurability of these ideas with the traditional norm for education that leads to a watering down of the ideas and a feeling of hopelessness about it all.
What many don't understand is the enormous difference between the learning of the one child (your child) and the education of a nation. Try institutionalizing these "almost logical" ideas about learning for nation-wide implementation for a reasonable price and see what happens. I think it is possible to implement these ideas, but that means that we as a nation have to make hard choices. At the moment, we choose to fund education for all and learning for all be damned.
*: Every couple of decades these ideas or similar ideas seem to be reïnvented by a new generation ...
Re: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
#5Children want to learn, and if you dont beat out their love of learning by forcing them into a box that hardly anyone fits in, their inherent need to understand the world comes out. Its almost... logical.
Relevant Carl Sagan: "Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact." ( http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199601/carl-sagan?pa... )
True. But it is VERY hard to encourage the enthusiasm of a 4 year old who asks "Why?" 600 times a day. :-)
Re: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
#6This is not new, Chomsky was educated the same way.
Re: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relevant Carl Sagan: "Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact." ( http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199601/carl-sagan?pa... )
True. But it is VERY hard to encourage the enthusiasm of a 4 year old who asks "Why?" 600 times a day. :-)
Well, according to the article you just have to build a computer into the wall and let him/her work it all out on their own ;)
Re: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
#8Aaawww nuts.
Yes, education could be vastly improved, but you know what, my sons school is vastly improved over what I had.
Since 1913 when IQ tests started being nationally or internationally graded, the IQ median has been kept at 100. But without that smoothing the median level of 1913 would be 77 or so today, and the median today would be in the 130s
We have got smarter, or perhaps we have had mental tools passed onto us through education and social norms.
ref: err... a Ted talk recently released....
Re: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relevant Carl Sagan: "Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact." ( http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199601/carl-sagan?pa... )
True. But it is VERY hard to encourage the enthusiasm of a 4 year old who asks "Why?" 600 times a day. :-)
That's what YouTube and Netflix documentaries are for. My kids love them and they give you a break from coming up with all the answers. :)
Re: How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
#10Interesting how the public school "reform" movement in the US cuts hard against this sort of experimentation --- in particular, by mandating curricula, and evaluating students and schools by performance on cookie-cutter tests that make no room for individual interests or variation.