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Kindles or even better iPads would be great. Reading is not how the majority of people learn though. So while technology is fine and dandy and certainly has its place, ignoring what we actually KNOW about how people learn is pointless.
What hasn't changed in 50 years? The human brain, the product of a million years or so of evolution. Shifting instruction entirely to focus on the learning style of one subset of learners is not the answer to fixing the issues in education.
Why do people not understand the FACT that they way YOU learn is not the way everyone learns?
Very good point. The human brian has not evolved in the last 50 years. It still learns the same ways it did before.
Unfortunately, given that parents are plugging their babies in to video and computer games the brains we teach are conditioned for bright colors, eye catching fast moving graphics and something new every 30 seconds. I can see where kids would be attracted to computer learning but they get to distracted during computer learning. They do not know how to stay on task. IMO, we need teachers in front of the classroom now more than ever because our students are less able to stay on task and teach themselves.
What hasn't changed in 50 years? The human brain, the product of a million years or so of evolution. Shifting instruction entirely to focus on the learning style of one subset of learners is not the answer to fixing the issues in education.
Note, the human brain actually *is* still evolving and it evolves relatively quickly over time
By comparing mutations that had no effect on the function of the genes with those mutations that did, they came up with a measure of the pressure of natural selection on those genes.
The scientists found that the human brain's genes had gone through an intense amount of evolution in a short amount of time - a process that far outstripped the evolution of the genes of other animals.
To understand why games might be good for the mind, begin by shedding the cliché that they are about improving hand-eye coordination and firing virtual weapons. The majority of video games on the best-seller list contain no more bloodshed than a game of Risk. The most popular games are not simply difficult in the sense of challenging manual dexterity; they challenge mental dexterity as well. The best-selling game of all time, The Sims, involves almost no hand-eye coordination or quick reflexes. One manages a household of characters, each endowed with distinct drives and personality traits, each cycling through an endless series of short-term needs (companionship, say, or food), each enmeshed in a network of relationships with other characters. Playing the game is a nonstop balancing act: sending one character off to work, cleaning the kitchen with another, searching through the classifieds for work with another. Even a violent game like Grand Theft Auto involves networks of characters that the player must navigate and master, picking up clues and detecting patterns. The text walk-through for Grand Theft Auto III—a document that describes all the variables involved in playing the game through to the finish—is 53,000 words long, the length of a short novel. But despite the complexity of these environments, most gamers eschew reading manuals or walk-throughs altogether, preferring to feel their way through the game space.
Positive Effects of Video Games (http://www.macroevolution.net/positive-effects-of-video-games.html#.Tt-CLpGwV6s - broken link)
Quote:
Reorganization of the brain's cortical network in young men with significant experience playing video games gives them an advantage not only in playing the games but also in performing other tasks requiring visuomotor skills. The findings are published in the current issue of the journal Cortex (Cortex - Elsevier).
The first link is nothing more than punctuated equilibrium. Sorry but no, 50 years is not the time scales they are talking about
"To accomplish so much in so little evolutionary time - a few tens of millions of years"
Tens of millions does not equal 50. In fact that time scale is even longer than the one I gave in my post.
Aside from that I am not sure why I was quoted in context with video games as I said nothing about them one way or another.
Just wanted to say that I did not mean to imply that brains have evolved. I think kids are just used to high resolution, color graphics that are fast moving. So, naturally, they find school boring. They'd rather watch cartoon characters controlled by a joystick than a teacher.
I could see if they were being bullied or something, but why do some kids just hate going to school for no apparent reason? Is it because they're forced to go? Because they have to wake up early? Other reasons?
Although it's true that some children have hated school from the very beginning, most children did enjoy learning in general, and most children have enjoyed learning about one or two particular subjects.
Until phonics was taken out of the picture. Today, children are struggling to even understand what is being read, much less recognize the message as a whole.
Check out "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America", by Charlotte Iserbyte which she gives out for free (pdf). It's a decade by decade overview of public education.
Today, public school costs in excess of $11,000 per child per year. Is the quality we're getting really worth this enormous amount of money?
My five year old (not a genius) is at the grade 4 level of reading with a good deal of comprehension. What he does not understand, we look up in a children's dictionary. We have invested into a 10 year program in English literature and English common law as well as mathematics. The cost per year is less than $50 per child per year in our home school. I would like to get a tax credit.
I can say one thing for sure, the system of education cannot address the poor academic performance we are seeing. One of the main reasons is the system's preference for whole language learning over phonics.
Although it's true that some children have hated school from the very beginning, most children did enjoy learning in general, and most children have enjoyed learning about one or two particular subjects.
Until phonics was taken out of the picture. Today, children are struggling to even understand what is being read, much less recognize the message as a whole.
Check out "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America", by Charlotte Iserbyte which she gives out for free (pdf). It's a decade by decade overview of public education.
Today, public school costs in excess of $11,000 per child per year. Is the quality we're getting really worth this enormous amount of money?
My five year old (not a genius) is at the grade 4 level of reading with a good deal of comprehension. What he does not understand, we look up in a children's dictionary. We have invested into a 10 year program in English literature and English common law as well as mathematics. The cost per year is less than $50 per child per year in our home school. I would like to get a tax credit.
I can say one thing for sure, the system of education cannot address the poor academic performance we are seeing. One of the main reasons is the system's preference for whole language learning over phonics.
Ugh. Phonics is NOT the be all and end all in learning to read.
I learned to read prior to school at 3 and I did NOT learn through phonics. I learned through memorizing books I liked and then being able to read those words in other books. My granddaughter knew all her letter sounds at 2, but struggled with reading partly because English is really NOT phonetic. Her autistic brother learned to read from the Bumblebee videos where the pictures and words were on the screen at the same time (also a word program called Words Around Me where the same thing was true).
She tries to spell words phonetically, but you tell me:
Her spelling list included words like
doe and dough
unique
ewe and hue
neighborhood
weigh and way
etc., etc., etc.
Children learn differently. Some need phonics, others don't.
It's not relevant and doesn't fully foster growth in all facets of life so it's not often cooperative, not effective, not challenging creativity, not free in democracy and supplies.
Ugh. Phonics is NOT the be all and end all in learning to read.
I learned to read prior to school at 3 and I did NOT learn through phonics. I learned through memorizing books I liked and then being able to read those words in other books. My granddaughter knew all her letter sounds at 2, but struggled with reading partly because English is really NOT phonetic. Her autistic brother learned to read from the Bumblebee videos where the pictures and words were on the screen at the same time (also a word program called Words Around Me where the same thing was true).
She tries to spell words phonetically, but you tell me:
Her spelling list included words like
doe and dough
unique
ewe and hue
neighborhood
weigh and way
etc., etc., etc.
Children learn differently. Some need phonics, others don't.
As for reading comprehension, it starts with verbal comprehension and too many children are never told stories or talked to.
There's a time and place for whole word learning but it comes after phonics. If you do it in the wrong sequence, it will complicate things. You may be an exception to the rule.
And I agree, being read to is complementary to the phonics instruction. Comprehension sets up for eventual whole word reading.
Whole word reading in turn sets up for rapid reading. Obviously you can't speed read if you're sub-vocalizing the phonetics all the time.
There's a book called ABCs and All Their Tricks which is a reference book for teachers containing all the rules of phonics. We graduated up to it but first taught primary phonics.
The problem I have with the public school system is that phonics has been entirely chopped from the curriculum.
There's a time and place for whole word learning but it comes after phonics. If you do it in the wrong sequence, it will complicate things. You may be an exception to the rule.
Actually no. Many, many children learn just fine using the sight word concept. The problem is that a significant portion of the population (not the majority) cannot learn this way. That was the failure.
Not that sight reading doesn't work. Not that every person needs to learn phonics. The failure was thinking that a single system will work for everyone. We know that people learn differently, and learning to read is not exception.
Quote:
The problem I have with the public school system is that phonics has been entirely chopped from the curriculum.
My daughter is 17. She was taught phonics (though she also did not need it) when she was in grade school. At the same rate my bestfriend has an 8 yo and a 4 yo. They are both taught phonics. The only person I know who was taught purely using whole language is my one cousin who is now 25.
The whole language approach was part of the "reading wars" but has not been a common sole reading system in the majority of public schools since the late 1990s.
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Very good point. The human brian has not evolved in the last 50 years. It still learns the same ways it did before. 
Phonics is the Missing Ingredient
