[Khaled] Back to our citizens. When you are oblivious to where you are physically, I mean not being able to point to a world map and say I am here, it's only downhill from there.
[Arlo] The bulk of our approach to education in this country is Fordist in a post-Fordian world. Traditionalists argue that "because my daddy was taught that way, my kids should be taught that way". Progressives make the mistake of throwing every passing fad into the mix they can. And teachers are overwhelmed, numb and caught between kids, parents and bureaucrats. We teach for tests because that is all "No Child" is, and that is what districts have to do. Gone are critical thinking, higher level cognitive skills like synthesis, analysis and evaluation (e.g. using Bloom's Taxonomy). The curriculum has largely become piecemeal, with disconnected subjects with little perceived relevance being jumped into and out of every fifty minutes. The overwhelming majority of parents are only involved in their children's schooling to complain about something, be it "evolution", "an unfair grade", or when something goes wrong. We expect teachers to deal with all sorts of problem behavior, but then cripple their ability to do so. When I lived in Chicago years ago, I overheard a college student in the library of UC actually asking the reference desk for an atlas "because she needed to find out where Israel was for her history class". On one hand, I ask, how the hell does someone make it to the college level without a basic understanding of where these countries are. On the other, I know, that the impetus in American culture is purely America-centric, we don't give a damn about the rest of the world, and so why on earth should it matter. Back home, my mother works with a mother who actually went to the school to demand her daughter NOT have to learn a second language, telling my mom "if English is good enough for me, it's good enough for the rest of the world" (actual quote!). Over the past decade, when I have been involved in instructional design work and curricular issues, I have seen a slow trend (but not without opposition) towards the type of constructivist learning environments that challenge the Fordist "all students in neat little rows, sitting quietly as the teacher fills their little mush-brains with knowledge". I have seen schools struggle to adopt integrated curriculae, to open up the typical "periods" to allow students who are engaged in history or biology to continue to be so despite what the little clock on the wall tells them they should suddenly be thinking about, to approach larger questions critically and to find meaning in what has typically been presented as acontextual, irrelevant chunks of "facts" that are doled out like peas in a daycare. And in many areas I see daily improvement and growth. But what has to always be remembered is that "education" is a reflection of the values of the culture. And I am not just talking about which "facts" are valued. When parents become more involved, when learning becomes more important than "passing a test", when we stop demanding an arbitrary, externally imposed "progression" to learning, when the home and the community value this, then the schools will ipso facto be like this as well. Now you got me on a rant. Sorry. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
