Changing Education Paradigms

[daichi_no_ryoku]

First of all, watch this. No really, watch it. It's about 11 minutes, but visually interesting, so it should roll by pretty quickly.

Click to view

Did you watch it? If not, go back and do it

Comments

[ckctomcat]

I hope to get to this over the weekend. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and continuing reflection on this topic.

[anonymous]

Watched the video...very very interesting and informative...and fascinating to watch him draw. Would that every teacher and school system would view this and rethink our education system. I found your thoughts very intersting also. Thanks for sharing this video and your thoughts! cdc

What to do?

[ckctomcat]

So we've talked before about getting rid of compulsory mandates for school attendance, and perhaps your suggestion is a good compromise to my tossing it out completely (though perhaps it shouldn't be an age or grade level, since that reinforces the "everyone has the same development pattern" mentality; instead, maybe mastery of certain skills goes on your permanent record, and when you've accomplished the minimum required set you can opt out....this has the advantage of encouraging students to learn even if they want out, and it happens at individual paces and doesn't have to happen in a particular order). But a lot of these ideas aren't that revolutionary in education circles--it's just that politics and tradition prevent most opportunities to experiment. Charter schools? While they can experiment, education is not their primary concern--making a profit is. Some have done really well....many have not. We need to strip the standards from the laws already on the books, and find ways to encourage and fund experiments. But before