Dear all,
It’s been an up and down 10 days. Starting with the death of
Paul, through the DOET visit to the fun Primary school production. An important
learning for these 10 days has been that life continues no matter how we are
challenged. In this week’s Food for Thought I have broken my promise to keep it
short and focused. Why have I done that? The answer is simple, so many things
came my way these last 10 days that I thought I’d share and you can take your
pick as to what you want to read. I think there is something for everyone to
think about:
- Getting to know more about Paul Ginnis
- Our brain and the modern world
- Joy in Schools
- Dangers of going 100% Google
- Homework and learning
If you want to read all of the posts as separate articles, videos
etc downloaded then follow this link to another of my blogs that is just 4U http://whynotishcmc.blogspot.com/
- 1. The first link is for those of you who would like to have known more about Paul, his interests and his passions.
2. This article builds on other articles that I have shared about slowing down and the dangers of multi-tasking
Why the modern world is bad for your brain
“Our
brains are busier than ever before. We’re assaulted with facts, pseudo facts,
jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information. Trying to figure out what
you need to know and what you can ignore is exhausting. At the same time, we
are all doing more. Thirty years ago, travel agents made our airline and rail
reservations, salespeople helped us find what we were looking for in shops, and
professional typists or secretaries helped busy people with their
correspondence. Now we do most of those things ourselves. We are doing the jobs
of 10 different people while still trying to keep up with our lives, our
children and parents, our friends, our careers, our hobbies, and our favourite
TV shows.
Our smartphones have become Swiss army knife–like appliances that include a
dictionary, calculator, web browser, email, Game Boy, appointment calendar,
voice recorder, guitar tuner, weather forecaster, GPS, texter, tweeter, Facebook updater, and flashlight. They’re more
powerful and do more things than the most advanced computer at IBM corporate
headquarters 30 years ago. And we use them all the time, part of a 21st-century
mania for cramming everything we do into every single spare moment of downtime.
We text while we’re walking across the street, catch up on email while standing
in a queue – and while having lunch with friends, we surreptitiously check to
see what our other friends are doing. At the kitchen counter, cosy and secure
in our domicile, we write our shopping lists on smartphones while we are
listening to that wonderfully informative podcast on urban beekeeping.”
This Daniel Goleman short 2 minute video
further emphasizes the points being made about how we need to focus our brain
even if we are to feel compassion for others.
3. This article builds on
why happiness and joy should be an important part of our school development
plan.
Joy: A Subject Schools Lack
….”Before you brush this argument aside as sentimental fluff, or
think of joy as an unaffordable luxury in a nation where there is dire poverty,
low academic achievement, and high dropout rates, think again. The more dire
the school circumstances, the more important pleasure is to achieving any
educational success.
Many of the assignments and
rules teachers come up with, often because they are pressured by their
administrators, treat pleasure and joy as the enemies of competence and
responsibility. The assumption is that children shouldn’t chat in the classroom
because it disrupts hard work; instead, they should learn to delay
gratification so that they can pursue abstract goals, like going to college.
They should keep their hands to themselves and tolerate boredom so that they
become good at being bored later on.
Not only is this a dreary
and awful way to treat children, it makes no sense educationally. Decades of
research have shown that in order to acquire skills and real knowledge in
school, kids need to want to learn. You can force a child to stay in his or her
seat, fill out a worksheet, or practice division. But you can’t force a person
to think carefully, enjoy books, digest complex information, or develop a taste
for learning. To make that happen, you have to help the child find pleasure in
learning—to see school as a source of joy.”
4. This article
is very relevant with the spread of Google influence in our school and our
visit this week of Kim Cofino and our focus on technology.
What Do Schools Risk By Going ‘Full Google’?
“A familiar charge is that the
paperless classroom creates a digital divide. At schools like Woodlake, Morgan
says, “we’re not at the point where every student has a device and Wi-Fi at
home.” She had to print out some assignments for students, or else cut back on
homework — not exactly what was promised.
Another big concern is commercialization and student privacy. As
Yeskel has mentioned in other interviews, Google’s business motive here is
to expose young users to the Google brand. To hook them early.
Khaliah Barnes, director of the Student Privacy Project of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), warns, “When you’re using free
services, if you don’t know what the product is, you are the product.”
In March, as part of a federal lawsuit, Google admitted it had
been data-mining student
email messages to
potentially improve its targeted advertising, among other reasons. As of late
April, says Yeskel, “We no longer show any ads to students or use any
information in any other Google products. We take ownership of any user data
extremely seriously.”
Still, users of Google Apps for Education are subject to Google’s terms of
service, which is subject to change.
The need to decipher service agreements to protect student
privacy is a big responsibility for teachers. And that’s part of a larger
dilemma as schools go digital — teachers and districts are being asked to make
significant decisions about, and investments in, technology use without much
help.
“The thing about Google is they’re a technology company, not
really a solution company,” says Phil Hill, an educational technology
consultant and market analyst. “Rather than understand needs and build a
holistic solution, Google has the ability to throw stuff out and see what
happens.” “
5. Finally, the ultimate challenge in Asian International
Schools to get students and parents to care more about what they are learning
and the processes involved of than the
grade they are given for their homework/ assessment tasks.
Alfie Kohn: No Grades + No Homework = Better Learning
In a thought-provoking
presentation, Alfie Kohn makes a compelling case that two traditional features
of schooling -- grades and homework -- are not only unnecessary but actually
undermine students’ interest in learning.
Research consistently
finds that giving students letter or number grades leads them to think less
deeply, avoid challenging tasks, and become less enthusiastic about whatever
they’re learning – and that’s true for those who get A’s as well as D’s.
Similarly, making children work what amounts to a second shift after having
spent all day in school not only proves frustrating but also turns learning
into a chore. Surprisingly, claims that homework enhances understanding or
promotes better work habits are contradicted by both research and experience.
Rather than trying to tweak the details of how students
are graded, or how much (or even what kind of) homework they’re assigned, Kohn
argues that we need to ask whether the practices themselves really make sense.
Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on education,
parenting, and human behavior. His 11 books include PUNISHED BY REWARDS (1993),
THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE (1999), and THE HOMEWORK MYTH (2006). Time magazine
has described him as "perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of
education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores."
Enjoy your Sunday
Yours
Adrian
No comments:
Post a Comment