I have been spending a lot of time thinking about our discussion last week about Shortest Path. In case you don't remember I was having a hard time fitting together the ideas of teaching using "the most direct route from point to point" and teaching through inquiry and asked for help. Kim suggested (as I remember it) that Lemov means to teach with college readiness in mind, that we should teach the things students need to be successful in college in the most efficient manner possible.
In addition to reading Lemov I am also currently making slow progress through Yong Zhao's (U of O prof.) Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization. In what I have read of Zhao thus far he attributes The United States' success in so many things (research, business, tech, etc) during the last century to an educational system that encourages creativity and individuality. He explains that while we try to copy the Asian style of standards and testing that folk in China are trying to copy our old system of education so that they can "Lead the Way." That's right! He actually says that standards are a problem - or at least that they aren't the solution to all of our problems. It is instead more important that (once students have the basics, I would assume) they are inspired, motivated, and interested in something. That something will vary greatly from student to student.
So what of physics or chemistry do students need to be successful in college? For a lot of folk the answer is probably nothing. Similarly I learned nothing about art, European history, welding, or the French language in high school and college went very well for me. I still believe these are important subjects.
At what point do we stop focusing on standards and the minimum necessarily and start focusing on inspiration, excitement, on just being well rounded and being happy? What if one of my students is destined to be the next great aerospace engineer given the right experiences and I skip out on talking about terminal velocity and air resistance calculations because it isn't needed by all my students?
I like what you are saying here. I have heard that this is happening in other countries and have wondered myself about what having kids who can read, write and do math, but have no creativity or inspiration or motivation or passion about anything means to a nation....
ReplyDeleteRachel you bring up a wonderful point that coinsides with a book I am reading called Drive. (it was the book of choice for the book study last year) In this book the author is talking about the intrinsict and extrinsic motivations of our human race. From once the world was created, till now. Hearing you refference how the Chineese are developing their educational systems after our were back 30-40 years ago makes me think that teaching to the standards is decreasing our students abilities to be eager about learning, creativity, and most importantly to be motivated to learn.
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