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That's great that your dd is helping struggling students to learn the material and and improve their grades.
This valedictorian's speech was about changing the system so that it encourages student's curiosity, adventure, resilience, insight, innovation, creativity and critical thinking rather then focusing on grades and test scores. How would a High School student go about making those types of changes to the system?
How about starting the innovative thinkers club and getting out into your or lower schools and soliving all the issues you think the generations before you have no clue on? Want to encourage curiosity? Then plan a summer camp for younger kids that gives them something they don't get in class? Ditto with creativity.
I haven't done it in years, but I used to work with the students where I attended college who worked with inner city youth to expose them to science career options. It was great.
There is one thing missing from her speech though. She tells us to not focus on test scores but offers no alternatives. It's really easy to whine about what's wrong when you have no answers.
Unfortunately, the average student is not intrinsically motivated to learn what they need to learn. Grades and tests are external motivators and measures of degrees of success. As to the student who doesn't need them? They won't stand in their way. You can be innovative, creative, resilient and insightful in addition to being a good student .
I WISH students had a natural curiosity. I teach chemistry. When we do labs, kids should be curious. The vast majority, however, just want the easiest path to the answer so they can be done. They're not ready yet. I end up answering the questions I WISH they'd ask. It's not that I don't give them opportunity. They're just not ready yet. You don't teach kids to have insight. You teach them many things and then they develop insight on their own. Once they've learned a critical mass of material, they start putting it together in different ways (innovation). We're talking about kids here and things that aren't taught but, rather, develop over time with experience. Trust me. I've tried investigative learning and tried things like getting my students to design their own labs. Most of them are not ready. It's enough to get them to understand what I told them to do.
You cannot be creative or innovative until you learn the basics and learn them so well you understand why they work the way they do. Only then can you start tinkering with alternative methods. That's where those grades come in .
Seriously, if you want to see more innovation and creativity, lengthen the school year. Give us more time to work with kids so we can get the basics taught and do more. You just can't frost a cake until it's done baking and cooled. She's talking frosting. As things are, we're, barely, getting the basics down and often not doing that well. What this girl fails to realize is the things she's complaining about are not even in the radar of the average student. They're just trying to get to square one. She's clueless as to who her classmates are.
How about starting the innovative thinkers club and getting out into your or lower schools and soliving all the issues you think the generations before you have no clue on? Want to encourage curiosity? Then plan a summer camp for younger kids that gives them something they don't get in class? Ditto with creativity.
I haven't done it in years, but I used to work with the students where I attended college who worked with inner city youth to expose them to science career options. It was great.
There is one thing missing from her speech though. She tells us to not focus on test scores but offers no alternatives. It's really easy to whine about what's wrong when you have no answers.
Unfortunately, the average student is not intrinsically motivated to learn what they need to learn. Grades and tests are external motivators and measures of degrees of success. As to the student who doesn't need them? They won't stand in their way. You can be innovative, creative, resilient and insightful in addition to being a good student .
I WISH students had a natural curiosity. I teach chemistry. When we do labs, kids should be curious. The vast majority, however, just want the easiest path to the answer so they can be done. They're not ready yet. I end up answering the questions I WISH they'd ask. It's not that I don't give them opportunity. They're just not ready yet. You don't teach kids to have insight. You teach them many things and then they develop insight on their own. Once they've learned a critical mass of material, they start putting it together in different ways (innovation). We're talking about kids here and things that aren't taught but, rather, develop over time with experience. Trust me. I've tried investigative learning and tried things like getting my students to design their own labs. Most of them are not ready. It's enough to get them to understand what I told them to do.
You cannot be creative or innovative until you learn the basics and learn them so well you understand why they work the way they do. Only then can you start tinkering with alternative methods. That's where those grades come in .
Seriously, if you want to see more innovation and creativity, lengthen the school year. Give us more time to work with kids so we can get the basics taught and do more. You just can't frost a cake until it's done baking and cooled. She's talking frosting. As things are, we're, barely, getting the basics down and often not doing that well. What this girl fails to realize is the things she's complaining about are not even in the radar of the average student. They're just trying to get to square one. She's clueless as to who her classmates are.
They're not curious because they've already been trained to believe that school is a drag, not relevant, and based solely on grades. Young children are incredibly innovative and creative, without the "benefit" of school. If you want to see more innovation and creativity, SHORTEN the school year and give kids time to chase their dreams and satisfy their curiosity. Rewards-based learning is not learning... it may satisfy the definition of "education," but it's not intrinsic, and it will not "stick." High school kids are certainly able to do the labs... they're just jaded, because they're taught from the age of five that if you get an A or a B on a test/lab/class, you've accomplished what was expected of you. I used to hurry through my "boring" school work/busywork so that I could go off and learn about what I REALLY wanted to know. I suspect that most kids would do this, if they had the opportunity. For some kids, as you've pointed out, each class is a struggle. These are the kids who don't have time to learn about what interests them (because they're expending so much time and energy on things that don't), and the kids who are labeled as "lazy," "uninterested," and "bad students." It's a shame, really.
I'm not sure if Montessori is considered truly "alternative" or not, but it certainly worked well for me. We weren't "taught" independent thinking, but it was definitely encouraged. I'm definitely on the side of less homework (especially for younger kids -- I don't believe in homework, other than special projects from time to time, in elementary school), don't think the school year needs to be longer, and think a focus on grades and tests as motivators are the wrong way to go about it. I believe much of that does stifle real learning, and teaches the lesson that learning is a chore to be endured, not enjoyed or actively pursued. Kids need the chance and encouragement to go after these things for themselves.
I do agree that you can be a good student (as defined by good grades and good test scores) AND creative and free-thinking and interested in active learning and the pursuit of knowledge; there's no reason those should be mutually exclusive.
They're not curious because they've already been trained to believe that school is a drag, not relevant, and based solely on grades. Young children are incredibly innovative and creative, without the "benefit" of school. If you want to see more innovation and creativity, SHORTEN the school year and give kids time to chase their dreams and satisfy their curiosity. Rewards-based learning is not learning... it may satisfy the definition of "education," but it's not intrinsic, and it will not "stick." High school kids are certainly able to do the labs... they're just jaded, because they're taught from the age of five that if you get an A or a B on a test/lab/class, you've accomplished what was expected of you. I used to hurry through my "boring" school work/busywork so that I could go off and learn about what I REALLY wanted to know. I suspect that most kids would do this, if they had the opportunity. For some kids, as you've pointed out, each class is a struggle. These are the kids who don't have time to learn about what interests them (because they're expending so much time and energy on things that don't), and the kids who are labeled as "lazy," "uninterested," and "bad students." It's a shame, really.
I'm not sure if Montessori is considered truly "alternative" or not, but it certainly worked well for me. We weren't "taught" independent thinking, but it was definitely encouraged. I'm definitely on the side of less homework (especially for younger kids -- I don't believe in homework, other than special projects from time to time, in elementary school), don't think the school year needs to be longer, and think a focus on grades and tests as motivators are the wrong way to go about it. I believe much of that does stifle real learning, and teaches the lesson that learning is a chore to be endured, not enjoyed or actively pursued. Kids need the chance and encouragement to go after these things for themselves.
I do agree that you can be a good student (as defined by good grades and good test scores) AND creative and free-thinking and interested in active learning and the pursuit of knowledge; there's no reason those should be mutually exclusive.
Montessori is very different from a traditional public classroom. I would LOVE to see more public Montessori options available. There are a few in my city and they are all very successful, very popular and because of that almost impossible to get into.
I used to lead groups for students at various schools and the kids at the Montessori school were the ones who showed so much curiosity, respect, interest and insight in the topic. It was like night and day from the groups I led in the traditional public high schools.
The young lady didn't offer much of a solution. I was taught in high school that one must always offer a solution when writing a critical piece. It's a lesson that has stuck with me all these years.
The young lady didn't offer much of a solution. I was taught in high school that one must always offer a solution when writing a critical piece. It's a lesson that has stuck with me all these years.
It's really pretty tasteless to criticize without a solution. Not having a solution means you don't know why things aren't working. For all you know, many other solutions have been tried and what is being done is the best that could be done. Then you just look like a fool.
Engineers learn early on to ask why things are done the way they are BEFORE they start trying to change things. It avoids making the same mistakes that led to the current practice.
Anyone can sit back and tell someone else what they're doing isn't working as well as they'd like. It takes someone special to actually come up with a way that yeilds better results.
I'm not sure if Montessori is considered truly "alternative" or not, but it certainly worked well for me. We weren't "taught" independent thinking, but it was definitely encouraged. I'm definitely on the side of less homework (especially for younger kids -- I don't believe in homework, other than special projects from time to time, in elementary school), don't think the school year needs to be longer, and think a focus on grades and tests as motivators are the wrong way to go about it. I believe much of that does stifle real learning, and teaches the lesson that learning is a chore to be endured, not enjoyed or actively pursued. Kids need the chance and encouragement to go after these things for themselves.
I do agree that you can be a good student (as defined by good grades and good test scores) AND creative and free-thinking and interested in active learning and the pursuit of knowledge; there's no reason those should be mutually exclusive.
Unfortunately, without tests, you can't tell parents where their child fits in the spectrum. They don't like it when you can't tell them how well their child is doing.
I'd agree on homework in the younger grades. A big negative of early homework is that you're at the mercy of the ability of the parents to help the child. Children with parents who can/will help will end up doing better than kids with parents who can't/won't help.
The reason I suggest a longer year is, IMO, what leads to creativity and innovation is reaching a critical mass of learning. Bear with me as this is kind of hard to explain. When I was in engineering school, they did not teach us to be creative or innovative. They taught us concept afer concept after concept....and then it became second nature to learn new concepts and we started putting things together in different ways we weren't taught. When it became about learning instead of what we were learning, creativity came into the picture but it took a lot of learning what and why to get to that point.
Then I went out into industry where things were done certain ways. Before I could improve on anything, I had to first learn why they were done the way they were. Only when you understand why things are the way they are can you start to change them.
Think of it this way. If you wanted to learn how to make fireworks. (The big kind that shoot way up in the sky that can explode and kill you). No one in their right mind would give you the supplies and tell you to get creative. No one would instruct you in how to be creative. They'd, very carefully, teach you first, one kind, then another, and another and so on and so on until you knew so many that you'd, naturally, start seeing different ways to put the materials together that you knew would probably work because you'd just done so many before.
They're not curious because they've already been trained to believe that school is a drag, not relevant, and based solely on grades. Young children are incredibly innovative and creative, without the "benefit" of school. If you want to see more innovation and creativity, SHORTEN the school year and give kids time to chase their dreams and satisfy their curiosity. Rewards-based learning is not learning... it may satisfy the definition of "education," but it's not intrinsic, and it will not "stick." High school kids are certainly able to do the labs... they're just jaded, because they're taught from the age of five that if you get an A or a B on a test/lab/class, you've accomplished what was expected of you. I used to hurry through my "boring" school work/busywork so that I could go off and learn about what I REALLY wanted to know. I suspect that most kids would do this, if they had the opportunity. For some kids, as you've pointed out, each class is a struggle. These are the kids who don't have time to learn about what interests them (because they're expending so much time and energy on things that don't), and the kids who are labeled as "lazy," "uninterested," and "bad students." It's a shame, really.
LOL, actually, No. Young children are good at copying what others do. If they trust their environment, they'll play around with things and try go figure out what they're good for but, mostly, they watch and copy. This is how they learn language, to walk and to climb the monkey bars.
I'm willing to bet that if we put a bunch of kids in a room and never let them watch anyone do anything, but gave the all the tools in the world, they wouldn't learn much. Children mimic. They mimic adults and they mimic other children. They are programmed to adapt to whatever society they are born into and they do that by copying what others do. That's not creativity. Their pretend play has a purpose. To practice skills they'll need for life.
Addmittedly, they are more open to change but that's because of the phase they're in in life. We are born with many times the synapses we will need in our lifetime. Those that are used, in the first few years are kept and those that aren't are pruned. The brain has lost, something like, 95% of it's plasticity by early grade school. This may be why you see temporary gains in math and science if you start a child in piano at the age of 6 but permanent gains if you start them at 3. The 6 year old is operating without synapses the 3 year old got to keep.
By far the biggest difference between a 12 month old and a 12 year old is one is making tens of thousands of new connections in her brain and the other is not. For an older child, creativity comes about when they are confident in their abilities and that happens when they've mastered many things. At first, you're just learning things but after a while, you're learning to learn and you have this repertoire to draw on of past successes to give you inspiration for where to go in the future.
If you need proof that a longer school year works, look at the countries that are beating us in both intellect and creativity. A 200+ day school year is the norm. What you are missing is that the more things you learn the more practice you get in the process of learning and you can then make the leap to learning things on your own using your knowledge as a base. You can't build anything without a good foundation. At least not anything that will stand very long.
And the reason my students are not creative is very clear to me (though I don't yet know how to fix it). They, simply, lack the knowledge base to have faith in their own decision making. In a class like mine, rightfully so. Students don't walk in with a sufficient knowledge of chemistry to design experiments or even get it when I do investigations. I, usually, have to tell them the connections. Every once in a while I get a student who just absorbs everything. THAT student will get to creative. Fortunately, they're, usually (I'll always remember Jeremy*, lol) smart enough to run their ideas by me first.
To be creative you need to feel comfortable in your environment and know enough about what you're working with that you're 1) not afraid of it and 2) have a pretty good idea WHY the things you already know work. It's that why that gets you to the next step. What, as in memorization to pass a test like our validictorian did, doesn't get you far.
* The names have been changed to protect the not so innocent, lol.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-18-2010 at 07:10 PM..
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Her speech is not without ideas on how to change things. Yes, her ideas are a bit vague and idealistic but keep in mind that this is just a 10 minute speech given by a bright eyed 18 year old. Right now she understands the problems but doesn't yet have the experience to fully grasp the complexities of the educational system to offer more specific and realistic solutions.
She quotes John Taylor Gatto:
Quote:
"We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness - curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then."
To the students:
Quote:
You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, "You have to learn this for the test" is not good enough for you.
To the teachers:
Quote:
You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply.
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Want to encourage curiosity? Then plan a summer camp for younger kids that gives them something they don't get in class? Ditto with creativity. 
It's really pretty tasteless to criticize without a solution. Not having a solution means you don't know why things aren't working. For all you know, many other solutions have been tried and what is being done is the best that could be done. Then you just look like a fool. 
