November 29, 2006
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Topic: Education, schools, learning, teaching, kids
I recently went out with a very intelligent girl who is looking to pursue her PhD in neurobiology, and wants to study how the brain comprehends math. She went to a highly regarded university and said she was highly motivated and successful there. This is the example of the school system working its magic. Student goes to class, gets work, read, listens, does projects, studies, explores, grows, matures, understands, questions.
The problem with the school system is that many people do not have this experience. Their schooling does not light a spark of learning. This includes students who do well in school, as well as those who drop out. Right now, in some ways I am fortunate in that I work in a school where many schools are struggling readers, no little about history or science, struggle with math, and have negative impressions about school. I say I am fortunate because here it is clear that a unique brand of schooling is necessary to help reach these kids dormant sparks of intellectual curiosity and ability. In a school where there is discipline, order, and the appearance of scholarship, it is difficult to see if some of these students are silently indifferent to their educations.
One thing evident to me is the way students are asked to write papers, and how the focus is on the process to get to a finished piece by months end. There’s a proscribed way to outline, to write a rought draft and organize information, and due dates to meet. Then when you look up from all this work, and see some of the nearly finished pieces, you realize what step was left out. It’s like baking a bake. All this time was spent measuring, and mixing, and baking, that we forgot to find out what the individual likes to eat. So you get kids with brussel sprouts and liverworst, and they don’t even know what those things are. It’s a mess, and it’s no good for students or teachers. We need to make sure students are engaged in what they are writing, that they’re passionate about their topic, and that their topic can be given depth with the aid of teachers.
Comments (2)
Schools fail – almost universally (90% of kids who do well would do well without school at all) – because they are “system centered.” Nothing about the teacher or the student matters in our educational system, which is, by its very structure, racist, Euro-centric, Protestant-centric, and completely meaningless to the students it is supposed to serve.
The worst things school do is celebrate a single way of doing things. We do not ask childrent to communicate effectively in their world, we tell them to communicate “just like we do.” Focusing on “the how” and never “the what.”
In the world, no one cares how you make letters for example, we type. No one cares how you write a paper, because 90% of human communication is verbal or otherwise informal. No one cares how many steps there are in a maths proof or how you add, we just want accurate answers. But school is never about what you know or what you can do. It begins by telling you that you are making your 5′s wrong and ends by telling you that you are making your footnotes wrong.
You want students to write? Get them to sit together and tell the stories they know from the neighborhood, so they can share them with other kids, other classes, other audiences. Research proves that students write worst when they write for teachers, because students know that the teacher knows the answer, and so nothing really needs to be explained.
OK. My rant – want interesting stuff? go to http://www.teachablemoment.org/ or read Neil Postman (if you have not read Teaching as a Subversive Activity you have not really explored education), or, in maths, look up the work of John P. Smith from Michigan State.
My education sucked, mainly cause I’m from the poor rural South. You New Yorkers have nothing to complain about. Ha!
I’M WEST HAM TIL I DIE! I’M WEST HAM TIL I DIE!