Reflect

As I grow older I always hope I will learn lessons by association. Usually not. I judged a group of videos for a video contest because some of my students had entered the contest and they needed judges. This goes under no good deed goes unpunished. Well in the process I watched the group of videos I was given and then I left them on my desk and came back a week later and watched again and did the evaluation. A good process. I had calmed down about some of the videos and I found things I had not seen before and liked. Experience #1.

Experience #2
A friend send me a chapter of a book he is working on. I read it and responded right away and not as pleasantly as I should have. I did not learn the lesson from Experience #1. I did not learn by association. I need to learn the lesson of reflection. The brain is a sometimes wonderful thing. Give it some time to mull over an event and the brain will smooth out some of the rough spots, it will help you see what is important and remind you of some lessons you need to look at.

Without time to reflect I stuck my foot in my mouth and I can do better.

Maybe I will learn to reflect more often. After all it is what I would like my students to do every once in a while.

The Early Chapters

I was disappointed in the early chapters of the book. He took the easy root and said what was wrong with education and did not have anything constructive to say. For example to use Picasso say that all children are born artists is the same as finding that Linus Pauling might say all children are born scientists. It does not take the conversation forward. It might be more to the point to say that all children are born with many talents and it is a function of schools to bring out those talents. The question becomes how.

Also it is easy to criticize schooling, it is always done because schools are always reacting to what they were told to do 10 years ago. When society needs a talent developed that schools are not developing at the moment it is schools fault. Unfortunately schools do not know what society needs tomorrow only what society thinks it needs today.

Back in the day we needed aerospace engineers, 10 years later those folks were pumping gas because we had too many. Was that the fault of the education system? I do not think so, I think we try to prepare students for a wide variety of paths and then let them loose on the world.

Also when KR says he has talked to many leaders of industry I wonder which ones and what positions were they looking at. For example - at one point the point is that we need fast acting, quick thinking, multicultural leaders. That does not sound like a software engineer to me, but what do I know. And how many do we need of each type?

Preparing students to follow their dreams is a wonderful aspiration, but as my wife and I know what you dream for is not always what will put bread on the table.

We Are Not Everyone

As I slowly read the book I come across part that I then think about. For those who know me that may seem a stretch, thinking is always tough.

The author describes his early life. He said that his father grew up and live his life close to where he was born, but the author had traveled widely and his children had as well. I felt that the author felt that his experiences were the norm. I am a contemporary of the author, he was born in 1950 and I in 1948, his father was born 1914 and my father 1910. My father traveled more than I have and had traveled to Europe at a much younger age than I did and my travels were gifts of my parents.

To say that our personal experiences can be generalized to all is not a good plan. There are those still who are born, grow up and die in the same relatively small area of the world. And I guess I ask what does this have to do with the point of the book in general? A second point the author makes is that change is happening more rapidly than ever before. So? Does this mean that what we teach as "basic" education should change? Sure it should, but the problem is what to teach and what to leave out. If "specialized knowledge" is needed what is the specialized knowledge that we should teach and should we leave out some of the "old" knowledge?

First thought of Out of Our Minds

#edbookclub is starting the next round of reading and the choice is Ken Robinson's Our of Our Minds. I have read the first 16 pages so I am barely into it. I keep wondering the balance between creativity and content. On page 6 ( of the edition I got in the USA ) he is talking about new technologies and says "New forms of work rely increasingly on high levels of specialist knowledge, and on creativity and innovation."

Is school not the place to learn the specialist knowledge? If so do we lessen the amount of content to put in time for creativity? Also how do we do this? I am full of question and have few answers and will be interested to see what the bookclub think and what is in the book.

As a chemistry teacher I find that my students come to class with little specialist knowledge and that my class is the starting point for their knowledge of chemistry. However it is hard work and students do not like the hard work because it is not fun. I know for myself that my personal learning takes time and effort and is not fun. It is the end result that is fun, the knowledge that I have learned something new, made advances in my own knowledge base and can do something new.

More to come as I read more and see what others have to say.