There is variety among students, including those that are outside the mainstream student population, and we know that each learner is unique in his or her manner of learning and of expressing what he knows. However, there are reasonable limits to the degree and types of variance that any teacher can be expected to manage effectively. There are cognitive, emotional, and developmental differences that stretch beyond the capacities of any single classroom.Consider developmental differences. These … [Read more...]
Accepting Alternative Education Practices
There is tremendous variety in the many types of schools that are not in the mainstream of public education, but represent variations on traditional educational methods and models. A wide range of private schools, vocational schools, and exam schools offer programs geared towards students with particular interests and talents or parents who desire a different learning environment for their children.While many of these schools differ from the mainstream in the focus of their curriculum, the … [Read more...]
How The Political Climate Is Not Promoting Student-Centered Education
Demonstrated dramatically in the case of an Atlanta school scandal, in which teachers admitted to changing test scores in order to meet the demands of the school superintendent, No Child Left Behind puts the focus in the wrong place. In the words of Dianne Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush, the “simple minded and singular focus on test scores distorts and degrades the meaning and practice of education.”Well-formulated standards are of great use … [Read more...]
No Child Left Behind, Leaving Kids Behind
The pressure to raise test scores and to compete with other countries generated bythe 1983 publication of A Nation at Riskhas led us in directions that decidedly do not keep students at the center inour focus. In particular, the recent wave of school reform enacted as law in theUSin 2001 under the mantle of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), mandates that allpublic schools make Adequate Yearly Progress demonstrated by raising scores onstandardized tests.At the core of this reform is the basic … [Read more...]
A History of Assembly Line Education
Despite the work of Sugata Mitra, Maria Montessori, and those student-centered educators in traditional classrooms who were keeping the child and the learning process at the center of their thinking, it is ironic the vast energy in public education in the 20th century was moving completely in the opposite direction. At this time there was a drive towards educational models based on the principal of mass production assembly lines, where efficiency and cost control are essential to doing business … [Read more...]
Strategies for Overcoming the Pitfalls of a Traditional Classroom Model
Aclassroom can be lifeless and boring, or even downright dangerous. Students canbe highly disrespectful, uncooperative, unmotivated, threatening, even assaultive. Teachers can be woefully out of touch with even the best ofstudents, so that these students lose their motivation, at least for theduration of this class period. A standard classroom can be a dismal place forall concerned, or a place of excitement and challenge. However, theseenvironments can change.Take thefollowing movie clips … [Read more...]
Films From The New Learning Institute
The New Learning Institute films look specifically at ways in which school leaders and educators are testing and proving project-based models for a new, student-centered model of learning.This collection—which includes profiles of school innovators David "T.C." Ellis, Jean Johnson, and Larry Rosenstock, as well as a profile of school architect Randall Fielding—explores collaborative, creative, multi-disciplinary approaches to engaging students. Each leader has developed personalized, … [Read more...]
What Dumbledore and Other Can Teach Us about Positive Examples of Traditional Classroom
Stripped down to essentials, this is the basic image of a classroom with which we areall familiar. At its best, when students are actually listening and learning,and when the teacher is truly enthralled with the subject and the experience,the effect can be magic. We have only to consult our popular culture torecognize what this scene can produce in our imaginations, at least. Think of To Sir with Love, or Stand and Deliver, or even ProfessorDumbledore speaking at Hogwarts. Greatness in teaching … [Read more...]
Architecture of a Traditional Classroom – An Opportunity for Change
We entera medium sized, architecturally uninteresting space. At the front of this roomthere is a black, white, or smart board. The person standing near the board isthe teacher. Somewhere to the side is the teacher’s desk. It is small to mediumsized, industrial, no frills, except whatever has been added by the teacher. Inmost of the rest of the room, students sit in rows in smaller desks, in chairsof a type that are rarely found anywhere outside of schools. The teacher’sdesk, though not large, is … [Read more...]
Using Technology to Drive Student-Centered Education
During a trial in the East Auburn Community School in Auburn, Maine, a group of students were “taught to read and write using an iPad” and “another group of students were taught the ‘old fashioned’ way, using a pen and paper, it was found that in every single literacy test, students using the iPad outperformed those who did not use the iPad by a significant margin” (TabTimes, February 2012).Noting this story is important to the expanded view of student-centered education, especially in the … [Read more...]
