After watching How to escape educations death valley. I find myself agreeing with everything Ken Robinson had to say. He says there is three principals that drives human life flourish.
The first being different and diverse: He says each child is different, and under the topic of no child left behind he says that its based on confirmatory not diversity school are encouraged to find out what students can do across a narrow spectrum of achievement. One effect " No child left behind" has been to narrow the focus on stem disciplines and tells us how they are not sufficient. Real education has to give equal weight to art humanities and physical education.
The second principal to help drive human life flourish is curiosity. If you can light the spark of curiosity in a child they will learn without anymore assistance. Children are natural learners. Its a real achievement to put that particular ability out or stifle it. Its and engine of achievement. An effect of that has been to deprofessionalize teachers. There is no school in any state or around the world that is more important than its teachers. They are the life blood of the school.
The third of the three principals to help human life flourish is being inherently creative. Everyone has their own way of being creative. Its what makes individuals and why we do our own thing and why we are so interesting, diverse and dynamic. Other animals may have an imagination and such but its not as evident as ours. We all create our lives through imaginative turnouts and such. One role of education is that to awaken and develop powers of creativity instead of using standardization.
Finland does well in Math, Science, and Reading. We only know this because this what we test for. Which one of the problems with the test is they don't look for other problems just as much. But Finland doesn't obsess about them disciplines. They have a very broad approach which includes humanities. physical education, the arts. Finland does no standardized testing, they do but it is not what they base their teaching platform on. They individualize teaching and learning and recognize that its the students who are learning and the system has to engage them, their curiosity, individuality, and creativity thats how they learn. They teach the student they don't dictate stuff the child already know instead they focus on their skills as a student. They put teaching on a higher status along with the realization of picking great teachers and giving them constant support in their professional development. Investing in the professional development is not a cost it is an investment and every country that is succeeding well knows that. people either don't want to learn or they do want to learn.
Every student that has ever dropped out of school has had a reason which is rooted in their own biography. It might be boredom, irrelevant, or at odds with the life they are living outside of school. Theres trends but there is always unique stories.
Ken Robinson's: Changing Education Paradigms
By Brian Orr
I will give a quick summary of the main points and dive into what I think. The main point of Changing Paradigms: think differently, mainly about our education system we have today. It's vitally important, the narrator says, that we redesign how we education our children for this changing economy, evolving work space, and growing (and shrinking) world.
The video is excellently produced, and I have to say even beyond the inspiring message, I was entertained. The entire time. As a 21st Century student, I am not going to lie and say I don't have a short attention span. Well, I do, and this video kept me listening all 11 amazing minutes. But back to the video, we have to educate students to be two main things, the global citizens of tomorrow and the "torch-bearers" of our country's culture. A big task, but something all countries are beginning to strive for.
I would say the first point I disagreed, or questioned, was the education system of America being flawed because of its origins being of the 18th century. Many things can be said to be obsolete in the modern world, but also many aspects of life remain mostly unchanged. Words in books still stimulate people to read them, music of the classical period currently fills my playlist, but the education system does not teach the correct way? I immediately was prompted to think...and that's great! I would say the video is onto something, but I would halt when making a sweeping generalization like it does here.
Onto the meat and potatoes of the message: how to make education more interesting for children and for adults, who have been asked to learn very "boring" subjects in an extremely institutionalized method. Education feels like prison is a common way to describe education in America, at least in my era. And being shepherded from one classroom to the next, among other norms of the education system like required general education for even college students, do not foster extremely useful learning in the video makers' opinion. Another huge point given I hadn't thought of is education is somewhat linear in its approach, that one right answer is what students search for. Rather, the narrator gives support to teaching divergent thinking, something younger children are taught more than when they grow to adulthood. Learning to find multiple answers to a central question (not so much in strict mathematics and science but in other subjects) is important to direct student thinking to finding their own best solution. Breaking out of the mold is a big theme in the video, even the manner in which the content is presented with graphics and animation is out of the norm...and I just like that. It's creative.
The last side note the video goes on about is ADHD and the supposed epidemic that is "hitting" American children. That the technology available today is so stimulating and fun to interact with, and the opposite being true for the school system, medication has been given to even the playing field so to say. Children would love to play games, watch movies, and search the internet for Knowledge (key point is knowledge can be found anywhere, yes even the internet), but the school system does little to compete with such a stimulating task as these technologies provide. Instead, the video points out ADHD medication is on the rise in America, and that parents are giving their children these pills to level down their excitement and make them close to brain dead. We limit the potential of their learning, possibly, or at least are first turning to chemical supplement (replacements in other words) rather than first turning to giving excitement back to the children and reinvigorating their want to learn! Make school fun. A cliché phrase no doubt but something to make as a goal in each school! And large doses of medication can't be good for our children....can it? I say a good portion of oranges, a math textbook with pictures and a narrator like the one in this video, and voilà : Education Fixed (or getting close).
The Importance of Creativity commented on by Laura Hamilton:
Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.Creativity expert Ken Robinson challenges the way we are educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.
To be honest, there will always be people who will put you down because you think of things that they don't or because you see things in a different way, but at the same time, in college, I have yet to run into a single instructor who has put me down for being creative. The instructors at my college South Alabama are always pushing their students to think outside the box and do their best no matter what the goal is. I'd have to say that college is a much better experience than high school ever was.
Image Sources: http://mikebougher.com/digital%20paintings/Paradigm%20Shift.jpg, http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6121/5917729691_f987df1dfc.jpg, & http://www.freefever.com/stock/creative-hummingbird-mac-os-mountain-lion-hd-wallpapers.jpg
Hey Sally, Your section review of the post was a bit hard to read because a few of the sentences had extra words or fragments. One particular sentence that I found was "We only know this because this what we test for. Which one of the problems with the test is they don't look for other problems just as much. But Finland doesn't obsess about them disciplines." I was not real sure what this sentence was supposed to mean. But your formatting and text was easy to view.
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