P. S. As I mentioned in the article which I linked earlier, one of the inspirations for these experiments, of course, were Pirsig's experiments with rhetoric instruction detailed in ZAMM.
http://mdcpsprofessionals.wikispaces.com/Overcoming+mediocrity+in+the+classroom Also, for more information on current public school spending in my district, please see: http://teachdade.wikispaces.com/Effective+education+spending Otto Zequeira http://mdcpsprofessionals.wikispaces.com On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 11:31 AM, Otto Zequeira <[email protected]> wrote: > Thank you for the replies. Food for thought. > > On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 12:09 PM, ml <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> ... As has been stated in this forum, though maybe >> not in exactly this way, education is something we >> do to ourselves in spite of the institutional thrashing >> about. >> > > Research shows that the way schools are run can create disparate results > for students. Please see "The Manufactured Crisis" and "Foundations of > Democratic Education". > > >> The low priority of education leads to a low ability to >> discriminate between students & the types of talents >> and information processing styles they have. In >> all fairness, it is too expensive a task, given the money >> available to the school districts. > > > Despite being 50th out of the 50 American states in education spending in > the state of Florida, we still spend in Miami-Dade County Public Schools > over 16K per student per year. I was fortunate to attend excellent public > and private schools, and my private school, although not as good for me as > my public school, spends 12-13K per student and has state of the art > technology, chemistry labs, a football stadium, far superior to anything our > public schools have. We have to consider alternatives to the current > management structures we use now. > > Some additional ideas for school restructuring can be found in these > websites: > > http://teachdade.wikispaces.com/School+improvement > http://teachdade.wikispaces.com/Vouchers+pros+%26+cons > > > >> The only thing worse than a cookie cutter one-size-fits >> all structure for education is the change-everything-for - >> the-sake-of-creativity, when it is implemented from the >> top down. It removes any hint of structure of knowledge >> itself or the relationships between things. > > > We are in agreement about this. > > >> Oddly enough, one of the best education systems I >> ever saw was in a Boy Scout troop. ... The 'expert driven' solution in >> modern schools >> precludes this precession of varied-ability- >> teaching that penetrates to everyone. >> >> The passage of my years through school was a >> contrast between mind-numbing lecture, which >> was personally good due to good memory, and >> split-up-into-groups-and-figure-it-out-for-yourselves, >> which was heinous. It was unguided, structureless >> playtime at any age from single digit to university. >> >> I agree with Sir Ken, but the how of it is the real question. >> >> thanks--mel >> > > We are in agreement about the importance of structural flexibility in the > classroom for learning, and that education is not a game. The goal of the > grammar games was to increase quality. Also, we were using a pragmatic > approach to grammar, where grammar was not the end of the lesson, but the > means with which we could arrive at better writing, editing, and student > engagement with words. We focused on understanding the top 20 grammar > errors or writing according to the book, "Under the Grammar Hammer". > > In addition to my instruction over the past couple of years to produce an > original product with which to demonstrate the lesson, this year I gave the > students a list of games from wikipedia which they could use to teach their > grammar lessons. > > > > High school students have been grammar workbooked all their lives, which > may explain their extreme aversion to the topic. We ended up teaching > grammar to 9th and 10th graders at the highest level that I have ever taught > it, at levels of application to the top 20 grammar errors, way beyond the > basic lessons in which we languished in the past. > > > Where I was lucky to get one or two teams to teach grammar over the past > couple of years, this year all of the teams of three students in my > classroom came up to teach, a 500 to 1000 percent increase. The students > were encouraged, I'm sure, by their peers who kept asking, "When are we > going outside? When are we going outside?" I had to keep reminding the > students that the objective was to become better writers and editors, not to > just go outside and play games. Hopefully we did both. > Sincerely, > > Otto Zequeira > > > >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "X Acto" <[email protected]> >> To: <[email protected]> >> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 7:01 AM >> Subject: [MD] school kills creativity >> >> >> Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're >> educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our >> school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types… >> >> >> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity >> .html >> >> >> >> 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/ >> >> 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/ >> > > 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/
