Learning should come from within…

I read a blog post suggested to me by fellow blogger friend Pat H. from Successful Teaching.The blog post, Reversing the Curriculum, was from the blog entitled Special Ed Changes.

The blogger got my interest immediately and I desperately wanted to share the first 2 videos with my readers.

I know I should keep on with my narrative here and make my point, but I don’t want to make you wait longer in your reading to see these two entertaining videos. When you finish them, we will continue with our narrative. (I’m just like a 5 year old!)

Here are those 2 videos.

and the 2nd video …

Watching these 2 engaging videos made me realize that it would be great if children could learn what they wanted, when they were ready, when they wanted, and in the order they wanted, much like the Montessori Method.

View this Montessori video as well. I know it is longer than the other videos, but try to finish it all the way to the end.

The discussion in this blog post centered on ...

When kids come to school at five (if kids should come to school at five in the first place) they have certain fascinations - hearing and telling stories, understanding signs, the physics which make their world work, hot and cold, animal behaviour. And great teachers do embrace much of this, but our school curriculum never does.
Instead of running with this natural learning curve, instead of meeting our students where they are, we focus all of our attention through the age of eight on a certain set of formalized learning systems which disinterest most kids, and are essentially impossible for many. We spend all of our time on complex symbolic codes (the alphabet, the numeral system) and on the operation of those code systems (phonics, spelling, arithmetic).
And, within three years, we have taken kids thrilled to start school and turned them into kids who'd rather be anywhere else.

In this age of technology and ever present information everywhere we are, why can we not let children learn as they are ready?

Why can’t children teach other children, teachers teach children, and children teach teachers?

I know, the tests… the accountability… I STILL think it can work.

See a very early blog post I made concerning my niece and nephew and their early PS-8 Montessori education.

What are you doing in your classroom that encourages creativity and allows children some say in their learning? Leave a comment.

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: learning,Montessori,Successful Teaching,Pat H,curriculum,education

Innovative Learning and the iSchool

Okay, there is just too much good stuff out there. I promised myself, and my husband, I would only write one post a day, but….

I know I could write several at one time and then only post one a day, but I just get too excited about what I am learning and reading. I don’t want to “hide” any of it! SO… I write and post as the thoughts hit me!

Isn’t it great when you love learning?

I was dutifully (not really dutifully, I love it and can’t wait to see what others have to share!) reading my blog reader when I came across this post Engaging Students with Passion-Based Learning by Lisa Nielsen of The Innovative Educator posted on August 18, 2009. She mentions being at a conference and a teacher near her states that (not a direct quote) “Kids need to realize that sometimes school IS boring and that’s just the way it is!”

Lisa strongly disagrees and talks about her school days in this post from April 22, 2009 entitled Immunization for an Uninteresting Curriculum Found at the iSchool in NYC. I need to read up more about this iSchool, but it sounds like a place all students should be allowed to attend.

Now, I think here we are talking high school at the iSchool, not elementary students. That is an issue that I would like to address, perhaps, more fully in future posts.

Primary school students cannot have this much “freedom” in what they do in planning their curriculum (especially when eventually they have to take those DARN TESTS!). They do have to learn the basics: reading and math, and of course, COMPUTERS! (That's right, Mrs. V!)

It’s all a matter of guidance, putting the opportunities out there for them, making those opportunities appealing.

So do we teach in primary classes, more along the lines of Maria Montessori, Project Based Learning, and Universal Design Learning?

My niece and nephew both attended a Montessori school until they entered high school. At the time, I worried that would not be able to learn in the “sit in desks in rows” regular type of high school (the current model when they were in high school) when they finally got there. WRONG, Aunt FAYE!

They are both highly intelligent students/young people who have mastered the skills necessary to succeed in the world of college and life and are contributing members of our society.

I guess I never discussed with them how they learned how to read, how they learned their times tables, how they learned about the periodic table of elements, or how to analyze a novel, etc. Perhaps it is time to talk with them.

I do have to say, I don’t ever remember hearing them say they were bored prior to high school! I am sure they LOVED SCHOOL!

PRIMARY students (usually) still have that love of learning. We just need to find ways to get the BASICS accomplished without deleting the FUN from school.

Most primary school teachers have found the way to do that for students. There are the exceptions, those students whose learning styles are harder to unearth. (That’s a post for another day and perhaps best addressed by those in the field of teaching exceptional students!)

SO, my question is this…

How do you …

PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS,

INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL TEACHERS,

AND MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHERS

… keep the LOVE OF LEARNING going

and teach the students to PASS THE TEST?

Technorati Tags: Montessori,PBL,UDL,education,learning,iSchool,Innovative Educator,Lisa Nielsen,boring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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