Personalized Learning Can Be Focused on Talents, Interests & Career Ideas!

Guest post from Mariaemma Willis, M.S., LearningSuccess™ Institute


Home and school educators often wonder how a child's learning can be customized to meet their style needs, talents, and interests, when there are state standards and school district requirements to follow.  Fortunately there are indeed ways to customize learning even when working with standards and requirements. 

Focus on Modality

Suppose the course is U.S. History. At minimum you can provide the information that you are required to cover in different modalities. Non-print learners have a difficult time processing and retaining information from a text book. Many books have recorded versions available or if you are getting the information online, you can use any number of free text to speech programs. Audio books are also an option, as are videos of the books for picture learners. With the technology we have nowadays and so much being available through the internet, these options could be made available to all students.

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Children can educate themselves without the control of adults

From Psychology Today article

The Sudbury Valley School has, for the past forty years, been the best-kept secret in American education. Most students of education have never heard of it. Professors of education ignore it, not out of malice but because they cannot absorb it into their framework of educational thought. The Sudbury Valley model of education is not a variation of standard education. It is not a progressive version of traditional schooling. It is not a Montessori school or a Dewey school or a Piagetian constructivist school. It is something entirely different. To understand the school one has to begin with a completely different mindset from that which dominates current educational thinking. One has to begin with the thought: Adults do not control children's education; children educate themselves.

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School is Not School. A Place Where The Community, Not The School, Provides Learning.

I recently shared three radical ideas to transform education without school.  In it, I shared Linda Dobson’s timeless article, When the School Doors Close:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream where she outlines the transformation that would occur if schools ceased to exist and instead we engaged in community-centered learning.  Rather than compulsory, age-based facilities, with community learning people choose to attend and learn about topics of deep personal passion and interest.  There would be many options available to individuals of any age.  The community takes ownership and responsibility of the learning and well-being of others.  As my wise friend Jeff Pulver recently said, “The only difference between a dream and reality is making it happen.”  

There is a community that is doing just that.  I learned about this community from Arif Hidayat.  Although we aren’t the same age, live on opposite ends of the earth, and don’t speak the same language we are connected by our passion to  provide children with learning opportunities that best fit their needs. Through the wonders of Google Translate we have been able to engage in an ongoing dialogue where he has shared stories about two Learning Communities in Indonesia. 

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What Parents Really Want to Tell Teachers: What You Do Hurts Our Children

Guest Post by Laurie A. Couture.  This article was originally posted here and shared with permission at The Innovative Educator blog.               
 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs (Image by Factoryjoe)

Many parents are shaking their heads at the audacity and insolence of the CNN article, What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents by Disney-and-Oprah-endorsed teacher, Ron Clark. His article is dangerous because it represents how the majority of traditional school teachers view children, parents and teachers’ roles as authorities over children’s lives. In my post, What Teachers Really Need to Hear From Parents, I challenge Ron Clark to consider the dehumanization of children and the undermining of the parent-child bond in the institution he represents.


Most parents in industrialized societies are conditioned by their own schooling to be obedient and unquestioning of their children’s schools and the so-called authorities therein. A frightening majority of parents are unaware that most everything that traditional school teachers do is developmentally inappropriate and even harmful for youth of all ages. However, a growing movement of parents are parenting through awareness, consciousness and connection to their children’s needs. Many of these parents are opting out of public and traditional schools are are seeking refuge for their children in child-centered and democratic schools or through homeschooling and unschooling. 


As a mother of an unschooling teen son, and based on the years of complaints I have heard from parents and their children about traditional schools, I have compiled a list of  concerns and presented them to teachers in the context of their own education:
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Parents Take Issue with Advice of 'Super Teacher' Ron Clark

 Guest post by Home Educator, Christiel Gota

Dear friends who are teachers:

This article by Ron Clark drives me to tears. I know teachers have a tough job and many are doing their very best within this system. However, I have to speak on behalf of parents when it comes to this article.

Sorry, Mr. Clark and all your minions, but I will NEVER stand against my child in support of you or the system. I will never apologize for jumping to my child's defense - and I will ALWAYS jump to my child's defense. Sorry, but I can't trust you - especially when you say my child has a behavior problem. They are no problem at home. If behavior problems only occur at school, it is YOU that is doing something wrong, not me!

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Rethinking Teaching and Time Allocation in Elementary School

Editor’s Note:  I have learned a lot about learning from the home education community in general and the unschooling community in particular.  The following post was written upon my inquiry to Mystified Mom, a life-long learning and home education expert, about how unschooling principles could be applied in the classroom.  Below she shares one of her smart ideas.  

Guest post by Mystified Mom
When Lisa asked me how unschooling principles could be applied in the classroom, I drew a blank for the longest time because what we do is based on freedom. A lot of our learning results from being able to be immersed in the things that we are interested in. I have been thinking about how things are done in the elementary school. Right now, teachers typically create lesson plans that focus on what they are going to do in each subject every day of the week. The blocks of time are typically about an hour.
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