Reforming the way schools teach...

[kmarinas86]

When I was many years younger than I am today, I was at my babysitter's when one of the children came up with idea creating a makeshift supermarket. It was alot of fun, and it was a very vivid experience.

 

Just ideas below:

Every school day should begin by involving children designing things and organizations. The starting time of this organization class is not hard set. It can be started as long as children are in the classroom being supervised.

Designing things requires that children know the information necessary to design them.

Children have to search for information to meet the demands of the organization they are making.

Setting up organizations requires them to have communication skills.

There should be a objective method of evaluating designs and organizations, by instructors ("you have no ____ to ____").

The most active and intelligent children in the organization should have knowledge of the instructor's evaluations and pass that knowledge to the other children.

Obviously, the instructor must supervise.

Anything that does not give tools for children to design - out of the class room.

There are still tests provided by the school.

The first part of the test is group work and closed book.

Groups are assigned randomly.

The 1 question in the first part of the test should be a passage or a very long mathematical problem that requires critical thinking.

Each step of the problem is done one at time by one kid at a time.

If a kid sees that the other kid did something wrong, then he/she cannot finish the problem, and the kid tells the teacher asking for help so they can get credit on a different problem.

If they are wrong, their wrongness and the reason for it must be immediately be addressed to the children. Each group must pass the first part of the test before they can go on to the second part.

The second part of the test is for each individual child.

The test packet should begin with a "you should remember" section outline on what the child should have known before the test.

The cost of opening a book will be a deduction of x points on the child's grade.

Grades will not be shared among children.

When children are given an event's name, they must play it out in front of the teacher (not necessarily in front of students), and they must do this for every event that is to be remembered for the exam, using a similar procedure to the one used in the first part of each test (per above).

For younger children, minature toys representing the factions and individuals in history should be the means of expressing the event. This is also a test of their conduct, and if inapproriate, their misbehavior will be addressed by the faculty.

[Michaelangelica]

When I was many years younger than I am today, I was at my babysitter's when one of the children came up with idea creating a makeshift supermarket. It was alot of fun, and it was a very vivid experience.

 

Not the same but similar:-

I have seen an amazing classroom and teacher, teaching composite primary class, where there were several "activity" areas in the room. The theme at the time was the sea. You had to fight your way though the door because of the streamers of coloured seaweed hanging from the roof.

Photos and pictures of 'sea' related things were pasted on every available space. There was a listening area where you cold listen to music on the sea; a reading area with books on the sea; a play area with shells and sea things; a tank with fish etc that the kids were responsible for keeping alive etc etc so much I can't remember. Kids were everywhere.

Organised chaos; but the kids were soaking up information like sponges. The whole place was joyous and alive. A joy to behold. The teacher was exceptional; lived for teaching;the kids adored her; she was not married and devoted all her time and energy to teaching.

She died young recently

michael

[Turtle]

I think the argument (title) is too general. Not only are there many different types of 'school' to choose from - Montessori, public, private, religious, magnet, etcetera -, any school in relation to a student's participation is only as good as the teacher makes it. :thumbs_do

[Michaelangelica]

I think the argument is too general. Not only are there many different types of 'school' to choose from - Montessori, public, private, religious, magnet, etcetera -, any school in relation to a student's participation is only as good as the teacher makes it. :thumbs_do

That is certainly my experience; although leadership is important. The managerial environment the "head" creates will effect how his teachers teach. It may not make lousy teachers better but an unsuportive environment will not help good techers shine.

[hallenrm]

That is certainly my experience; although leadership is important. The managerial environment the "head" creates will effect how his teachers teach. It may not make lousy teachers better but an unsuportive environment will not help good techers shine.

 

In my opinion it would be better to do away with schools, rather than trying to reform them.

 

http://hypography.com/forums/social-sciences/9318-can-there-any-viable-alternatives-schooling.html

 

When there would be no school the question of the quality managerial environment would be redundant:confused:

 

Freedom is all!

:thumbs_do

[Kriminal99]

I think she is just saying that we need to move away from the teacher - centric methedology we follow now where the teacher just sits there in front of the class fancying themselves some kind of oracle (which they are only in relation to the little kids) divulging the profound truths of the universe inspiring the kids to do things like pick their nose and throw spitballs.

 

Rather the students should embark on a self driven quest for knowledge where the teachers are merely the referees and as such the children can gain personal satisfaction for their discoveries...

[IDMclean]

That would be my assement, based on critical analysis of my own schooling and the schooling of others.

 

Children, despite lacking worldly experience and expressive capabilities, are in no way stupid. What the adults should be there for is to help provide and guide the child to the physical and mental tools they need to do whatever it maybe that they are capable of doing.

 

Their are several categories of essential mental tools that do however arise which should be positively enforced by the agents of the system (teachers) and the system itself (school). Reasoning (Logic), Reading, Writing (Literature), Arithmetic (Mathematics), and Communication (Dialectic, Rhetoric, Grammatic).

 

Due to the context sensitive nature of memory, it would be preferable to learn these skills in real world or near real world (representational) settings. In Elementry school, in the fifth grade, our entire school every friday would hold a game. The premise of the game was that each student was an employee who had a job of somekind, and each teacher was an employeer whom ran a business of somekind.

 

Students would seek out the jobs they were most interested in and would be employed by the teacher. The student would perform work (assignments) for the teacher whom would then pay (monopoly money) the student for their time. Each week the students would be given a pay check based on how well they performed that the student could use at the school store to buy supplies, snacks, and other nifty little things.

 

I highly enjoyed this game for several reasons. One of which was remuneration for effort given. Even if you got an F, if you did work you got payed. The teachers of course would give valuable feedback on how we did, and we (the students) actually held a number of jobs. The system rewarded you for working harder in a substantial way. The cost to the school for this was neglegible.

 

One of the best physical aspects of this was that we got to move around. We didn't just sit quitely in one class all day long. My favorite job I held was acting.

 

Ever since I have had the notion that an entire school could be ran on a more refined version of that model in such a way as to turn out superior performing students than the traditional model of school.

[HydrogenBond]

Part of the difficulty with any form for schooling is that students are highly diverse with various interests and natural abilities. Many of the students aren't even sure what they like, or where their natural abilities lie, until they are exposed to it. It is very difficult for any one size fits all approach to educaiton to mazimize the needs of all the students, unless there is one teacher per student, who also becomes their mentor. This is the traditional role of a parent.

 

If the parents were more accountable, since who knows little Johnny of Janie better, the teacher could focus on a more generalized education to overlap the specialty ability education provided for by the parents. The trend to pawn the children on the teacher and expect him or her to raise your children, giving your child the same level of attention you would give if you had the time and inclination.

 

Picture education as a combination of home and traditional schooling. The parent with the help of educators, sets up an at home program tailored to their child. They do this Tuesday and Thursday. The child also goes to a formal school setting, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This helps socialize the child and teaches them general knowledge and prepares them to live in the real world.

[IDMclean]

Well that is very insightful Hydrogenbond.

 

In my case, my mother proved to be a rather above average parent. So I have generally focused on where A) the society failed or did not provide :phones: the school system failed, did not provide, did not guide, or outright stifled the children (myself and my peers).

 

I do not advocate the schools as a replacement, but as a supplement. Of course the parent is extremely important in this whole picture. My personal feelings are that the parents should be paid for raising quality people. I do not think that remuneration should be limited to the student or the teacher. Raising children is hard work. A farmer gets paid for their crop, why not a parent for their child?

 

Children, in a more statistical and practical view point, are the most important asset to the society. Period. Without children, society would come to a halt and millions of years of effort would be wasted. In terms of commodities, children are some of the highest yeilding in terms of all types of capital, not just labor (when they become responsible adults).

 

As I have said before in other threads, the overall system, that is human society, should re-enforce mass constructively critical education, and the move towards more productive, innovative, intellegent, creative individuals. The many fields of human exploration show us what is and is not effective. We know that raising children is not simply a parental effort. It takes a village to raise children.

 

For a society that demands high quality individuals, the burden of responsibility falls on the society to provide the tools to produce those individuals, and to eliminate the bottlenecks that slow the production of those individuals.

 

Individuals are a medium, and a product. Like any medium or product their are ways to reliably design and develop better product. I would like to see a few things integrated into the individual development model. Theory of Constraint, and Project Management are good things to look at, I think.

 

The important thing to remember about raising kids, is that you aren't raising them to be doctors or lawyers. You are raising them to be individuals. From there the emergent properties will take hold and the individual will take charge and seek to meet their want's and needs in the most efficent manner possible.

 

So sure, kids are diverse but most often missed is that they are kids and kids one day grow up into people. Being that people are of the same genesis they will share more properties in common than divergent.

[hallenrm]

The comments of HydrpgenBond and KAC remind me of the kind of schoolong that was prevalent in ancient India, It was known as Gurukul, a place somewhat similar to a boarding school, but also different in several aspects. In this system the teacher (called Guru) took the entire responsibility of educating the pupils that came to him for several years till the pupil mastered an art or a skill.

 

I googled and found the following website

 

Different types of Gurukul in ancient India

 

Here is a paragraph from this site:

the gurukul system had the advantage of being egalitarian and fair. The teacher there observed the children's attitude, aptitude and ability, and educated them accordingly. As this was done without the interference from any external source (parents can be very pushy !), the educators were able to match the individual's temperament with the trade they learned.

[Turtle]

The comments of HydrpgenBond and KAC remind me of the kind of schoolong that was prevalent in ancient India, It was known as Gurukul, a place somewhat similar to a boarding school, but also different in several aspects. In this system the teacher (called Guru) took the entire responsibility of educating the pupils that came to him for several years till the pupil mastered an art or a skill.

 

I googled and found the following website

 

Different types of Gurukul in ancient India

 

Here is a paragraph from this site:

the gurukul system had the advantage of being egalitarian and fair. The teacher there observed the children's attitude, aptitude and ability, and educated them accordingly. As this was done without the interference from any external source (parents can be very pushy !), the educators were able to match the individual's temperament with the trade they learned.

 

It sounds similar to the scheme Plato puts forward in the Republic, except Plato meant to compell the effort. That is, Plato thought children at age ten should be taken from their parents and put in such schools as a Gurukul where they would be educated according to their lot.

 

I have no well formed opinion on the topic.