Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Heather Martinson
To listen to this article in a speech, go here: http://youtu.be/Z6hxnSmsoDM
Besides the fact that each of them displayed some very impressive skills, an
interesting thing about all these people is that they were all educated outside
of traditional schooling methods.
When I was in school and would learn about people like this, I recall how we
were told (with a tone of awe) how amazing it is that these people were able to
accomplish so much despite their lack of formal education. But over my years
involved with education and learning, Ive come to learn the truth about these
people: They were able to accomplish so much because of their lack of formal
education.
You see, if all you want is to be just like everyone else, all you need to do is to
go ahead and do what everyone else does. But in order to become something
different from everyone else, it is required that you do things differently. So
rather than standardizing education, and thus standardizing children, a more
powerful approach to education is to help each child find their uniqueness and
to expand on their own personal genius.
Communication in 1842:
Communication today:
1897 Classroom:
Classroom today:
As you can see, education as a whole has not yet entered this century.
There are some great programs out there, but the majority of learning
situations still uphold some of the largest myths ever placed on
education.
Here are some of these myths that are keeping schools in the last century.
Myth #1: A safe campus equals a good learning environment.
Truth is, there's a lot more to a school house than physical safety. How do the
students feel as they enter the campus?
In addition to being physically safe, schools should be emotionally
safe. Emotion is the gatekeeper to learning. Students should associate positive
emotions to their learning experiences.
School should be a place of possibility,
creativity, hope, and challenge. Children
should be safe from belittling by
teachers and bullying from peers.
Further, the environment should be
welcoming, to the point that it is a place
where students want to be. The goal
would be for the students have these
emotions as they enter the campus. I
feel...
Like everything on Earth just got a little bit better.
Like I am home.
Like living here, a magical place full of happiness.
The facility itself should be inspiring and give the feeling that anything is
possible.
School should also introduce learning to the student. The campus can be an
enriched environment thatreflects what is being taught. Rooms should be
simple, uncluttered, and inspiring.
To give the students a connection to the world, school should have outdoor
space where they have plenty of room to run about. This outdoor space should
also have access to nature there should be shade trees, garden areas, and
real dirt for the children to explore!
Myth #2: Compulsory education means that all children will learn.
Truth is, children are natural learners and don't need to be forced to learn.
Students should actually get to choose the projects that they would like to do.
This is one of those golden principles that is rarely utilized.
Instead of offering bland, one-size-fits-all worksheets, we should offer a
smorgasbord of learning opportunities!
What is amazing is how accurately children are able to choose the material that
suits them. Projects that are too easy for them are boring. Children want to
choose something thats new for them, but not too difficult. They are good at
choosing activities that are right at their learning level.
Psychologist Howard Gardner has taught us that there are many intelligences
that are valuable and also indicate success in life. These intelligences include
linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial,
interpersonal, intrapersonal, and natural intelligences.
So while schools spend so much time working on only two of the intelligences,
children who possess different intelligences are labeled as learning delayed.
But in reality, if all students are allowed to learn within their own intelligences,
then they are using their brains the way they learn most naturally. When their
brains are used within their dominant intelligences, then all intelligences are
improved.
Myth #4: More deskwork equals more learning.
Truth is, students need to move!
People assume that the longer a student spends sitting on task at a desk, the
more learning is happening. In reality, after sitting for a few minutes, the
brains ability to process information is greatly reduced. The students should
not sit for long, but should be allowed to move about the room and be active
participants in the learning process.
Sitting at a desk, the student is mostly dealing with one form of learning
symbols. These symbols are the letters and numbers that make up the
textbooks and workbooks that most children are consigned to use. But there
are some real downfalls to relying on symbols only. For example, read the
following paragraph:
These are spiny, hard-skinned animals that live on the rocky sea floor. These
invertebrates are NOT fish; they are echinoderms. They move very slowly along
the seabed, using hundreds of tiny tube feet. There are over 2,000 different
species of worldwide.
Did you guess sea star or star fish? You would be right. But most people
imagine something more like a sea cucumber.
Words alone can be confusing and may not give a clear image of a
subject. Better is if the students could also have pictures of the subject. As they
say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So much more can be learned with an
image of the item.
Yet better than a picture would be is if a teacher takes the time to present a
life-like representation of the item, the learning is deeper. Let's imagine the
teacher made a sea star out of sand paper. The students may be able to feel
the texture and perhaps the teacher could have a removable flap where the
students could see what might be inside the sea star.
Better than a likeness of an item would be if the teacher can show the real
object. This would have the most accurate information about what a sea star
looks like, feels like, smells like, etc.
Even better would be if the teacher could immerse the students in the subject
by creating a life-like sea star environment. The room could look like a beach
and she could bringing in a touch tank and allowing the students to touch living
sea stars.
Finally, the ultimate way to learn about a topic is to actually go to the real thing
in its natural setting. When students visit a tide pool at the ocean, the learning
is profound. They are learning with all their senses, and they are also learning
so much about the environment that a sea star exists in. These are the things
that the students will go home and tell Mom about. When Susie comes home
and says, Did you know that or Guess what I saw? This is when the
student is spontaneously sharing the things that she learned that day. Also,
after being exposed to the subject in such a profound way, the child is more
likely to take an interest in the subject and choose to learn more, often in the
form of books. They like to build on what they are familiar with.
iceberg, you can see how simple knowledge and comprehension assessments
are only the tip of the iceberg of potential learning experiences.
To create more meaningful learning and assessments, we can:
Allow the students to change the use of the information. Can it be used
applied to a different setting? Can it be used in conjunction with other
information? How can the information be synthesized? Is there another way
to express the information?
attitude, the schools spend way too many resources on making sure that the
children do not fall behind. This creates a situation where children are
constantly struggling to keep up. I believe that every child has special abilities.
But if all their time is spent in catching up, they won't have time to enhance
their special skills that make them unique. And if their special abilities continue
to be ignored, they may lose those talents.
Now I'm not saying that we should not have high expectations. We should.
Children tend to live up to our expectations. We just need to stay away from
standardizing those expectations. When we do we limit our children both our
special needs children and our gifted students.
Read this fable to more fully understand what standards really do to children:
Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy has proposed a new approach to
learning. He calls it a flipped classroom. What Salman recommends is that
students first use the Internet to learn topics, then time at school could be used
for homework time. That way, when the students are practicing what they
learn, they can get the immediate feedback from their teacher, thus excelling
the learning experience.
Myth #9: Forced children are smart children.
Truth is, fear is a poor motivator.
I've had credentialed teachers tell me about how important it is to keep a tight
reign on the students because if you don't have a quiet and orderly classroom,
nobody's going to learn anything. So they instigate systems to keep the
children behaved. These include rewards and punishments.
I find that there are three main ways that students or anyone are motivated.
1. The lowest form is through threats. Unfortunately, fear of punishments is
a bad motivator. These fears can cause undue stress and the brain does
not function as well in situations of stress and fear.Children should be free
from judgments in the form of testing, grading, and categorizing by ability.
2. A better motivator than fear of punishment is hope for reward. Yet, this
can also inhibit learning. I once learned this lesson the hard way. When my
youngest son was perhaps five, he enjoyed drawing fire and he did it well
for his age. One time he drew a flame that was very creative. I
complimented him on that particular flame. What a mistake!
Unfortunately, all the subsequent flames he drew were all the same
creative flame. Over and over. For months the only flames he drew were
all patterned after the one I complimented. His creativity was stunted
because he liked the positive attention I gave him.
The two motivators I have mentioned so far are both extrinsic motivators.
3. The final motivator I'd like to share is an intrinsic motivator. It is that
children will do the right thing because it's the right thing to do.
The brain is a self-congratulator. We feel good when we do what's right and do
it well. We should provide opportunities for our children to make their own
choices so that they may have the opportunity learn and practice this selfmotivation.
In the end, self-motivation is more important to the student than even than the
content of the information presented in a quiet classroom. The information in
the classroom will be forgotten, but self-motivation is a life-long skill that can
apply to success in all areas of life, including education.
They will drive themselves to know more.
Myth #10: Credentialed teachers means the children will be taught
well.
Truth is, children learn more from experience, environment, parents and peers.
We have already discussed how children learn from their own experiences and
from the environment.
Taught themselves enough English to use email, chat and search engines.