I'm doing it! Lots of members of my personal learning network are doing it! Students are doing it! Homeschooling kids are doing it! Teachers are doing it! Parents are doing it! And you should too!
We are all sharing our stories about how we are transforming education and challenging the status quo in public education by creating a sign and taking a picture with it that includes our faces. What is powerful about this is it shares the real voices of teachers, parents, and our youth, not just those of the disconnected politicians and corporate reformers.
Want to share your thoughts about education with the nation? Now's your chance! John Stossel recently followed up his 2006 program, Stupid in America with a show featuring new insights and observations and he wants to hear from you! He will be taping a show live in response to the new segment where he'll be sharing reactions to the show. Below is the show broken down into six segments each with some questions to consider. Watch, think, and respond (using labels A, B, C...) to any questions that elicit a reaction. If you do, you can get your comments on air by responding to this post.
Stossel is especially interested in any comments you have that are provocative, insightful, or hostile. John will take a look at your comments and consider including quotes from readers of The Innovative Educator during his taping tomorrow. You will be able to watch the show on Thursday at 10 pm Eastern time and Saturday and Sunday at 9 pm and midnight.
Additionally, if you want to attend the taping which takes place on Tuesday, October 18th at 7 pm at Fox Studios, I will be able to offer tickets to a select number of readers who respond to this post with their name, email, and why it is they want to attend.
So what are you waiting for? Go ahead. Watch! Think! Comment! Be heard!
A - Public schools are making us “Stupid in America.” What some are doing to change that.
School spending has tripled. School improvement - Ziltch
Since there is no improvement correlated to spending, should we reduce taxpayer burden? Why or why not?
Are test scores the best way to measure improvement?
Are our industrial-age model schools really failing or are they doing just what they are designed to do? i.e. babysit, reward compliance, punish those who question authority
Charter schools are doing the same job as public schools with less money.
Why is that?
How can public school learn from this?
Charter school operator Ben Chavis says he can take the worst school and turn it around at his American Indian Public Schools. Keys to his success: 1) Hire students to teach students 2) Use embarrassment to keep people in line 3) Teachers know they can be fired in a moment’s notice
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.
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.
Best selling author Seth Godin discusses the failure of our educational model that's built around producing factory workers.
Godin explains that it wouldn't take very many passionate parents to start schools down the right path. Parents just need to realize that they and their children own the learning and they are not the property of the government. For ideas on how to do this read my free guide downloadable from the right column on this blog: Fix The Schools, Not the Child.
As an educator, I am sometimes called upon to teach children test preparation skills. I do so because these particular children are going to have to take a particular test – it's a reality. However, the first step of my test prep lesson is to tell the children that I don't like standardized tests, especially high-stakes tests. I don't believe they should have to take them, and, I tell them, I didn't subject my own kids to them.
Here are my major reasons for my antipathy toward standardized tests:
