Education past, present and future

Introducing people of all ages to mythology... in pre-college educational curricula, youth orgs, the media, etc. Share your knowledge, stories, unit and lesson plans, techniques, and more.

Moderators: Clemsy, Martin_Weyers, Cindy B.

Locked
creekmary
Associate
Posts: 654
Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:13 am
Location: Oklahoma, USA

Post by creekmary »

I am still going to nudge along the school thing. Now that th' boy is ready to be a teacher I bet they could get something going through her little tribe and contacts from conferences and start a pilot program of some sort for that new teaching method she was so excited about.......

Clemsy can be head dude.

Susan

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

An advocate's book about how Big Money works overtime to destroy public education in America:

http://www.booktv.org/Program/14984/Rei ... hools.aspx

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

On a PBS documentary from the NY Times:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/op ... h_20131217
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

This NY Times piece is on the issues of teacher evaluations and standardized testing:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/us ... h_20131218&

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

Last edited by CarmelaBear on Mon Dec 30, 2013 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

Book excerpt:

 >Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think 
> by Peter H. Diamandia and Steven Kotler. A creative approach to education:
>
>  
> "In 1999 the Indian physicist Sugata Mitra got interested in education. He knew there were places in the world without schools and places in the world where good teachers didn't want to teach. What could be done for kids living in those spots was his question. Self-directed learning was one pos­sible solution, but were kids living in slums capable of all that much self-direction?
>
>
> "At the time, Mitra was head of research and development for NIIT Technologies, a top computer software and development company in New Delhi, India. His posh twenty-first-century office abutted an urban slum but was kept separate by a tall brick wall. So Mitra designed a simple exper­iment. He cut a hole in the wall and installed a computer and a track pad, with the screen and the pad facing into the slum. He did it in such a way that theft was not a problem, then connected the computer to the Internet, added a web browser, and walked away.
>
>
> "The kids who lived in the slums could not speak English, did not know how to use a computer, and had no knowledge of the Internet, but they were curious. Within minutes, they'd figured out how to point and click. By the end of the first day, they were surfing the web and-even more importantly-teaching one another how to surf the web. These results raised more questions than they answered. Were they real? Did these kids really teach themselves how to use this computer, or did someone, perhaps out of sight of Mitra's hidden video camera, explain the technology to them?
>
>
> "So Mitra moved the experiment to the slums of Shivpuri, where, as he says, 'I'd been assured no one had ever taught anybody anything.' He got similar results. Then he moved it to a rural village and found the same thing. Since then, this experiment has been replicated all over India, and all over the world, and always with the same outcome: kids, working in small, unsupervised groups, and without any formal training, could learn to use computers very quickly and with a great degree of proficiency.
>
>  
> "This led Mitra to an ever-expanding series of experiments about what else kids could learn on their own. One of the more ambitious of these was conducted in the small village of Kalikkuppam in southern India. This time Mitra decided to see if a bunch of impoverished Tamil-speaking, twelve-year-olds could learn to use the Internet, which they'd never seen before; to teach themselves biotechnology, a subject they'd never heard of; in English, a language none of them spoke. 'All I did was tell them that there was some very difficult information on this computer, they probably wouldn't under­stand any of it, and I'll be back to test them on it in a few months.'
>
>  
> "Two months later, he returned and asked the students if they'd under­stood the material. A young girl raised her hand. 'Other than the fact that improper replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic disease,' she said, 'we've understood nothing.' In fact, this was not quite the case. When Mitra tested them, scores averaged around 30 percent. From 0 percent to 30 percent in two months with no formal instruction was a fairly remark­able result, but still not good enough to pass a standard exam. So Mitra brought in help. He recruited a slightly older girl from the village to serve as a tutor. She didn't know any biotechnology, but was told to use the 'grand­mother method': just stand behind the kids and provide encouragement. 'Wow, that's cool, that's fantastic, show me something else!' Two months later, Mitra came back. This time, when tested, average scores had jumped to 50 percent, which was the same average as high-school kids studying bio-tech at the best schools in New Delhi.
>
>  
> "Next Mitra started refining the method. He began installing computer terminals in schools. Rather than giving students a broad subject to learn-for example, biotechnology-he started asking directed questions such as 'Was World War II good or bad?' The students could use every available resource to answer the question, but schools were asked to restrict the num­ber of Internet portals to one per every four students because, as Matt Rid­ley wrote in the Wall Street Journal, 'one child in front of a computer learns little; four discussing and debating learn a lot.' When they were tested on the subject matter afterward (without use of the computer), the mean score was 76 percent. That's pretty impressive on its own, but the question arose as to the real depth of learning. So Mitra came back two months later, retested the students, and got the exact same results. This wasn't just deep learning, this was an unprecedented retention of information. ... 
>
>  
> "Taken together, this work reverses a bevy of educational practices. Instead of top-down instruction, [these 'self-organized learning environments'] are bottom up. Instead of making students learn on their own, this work is collaborative. Instead of a formal in-school setting for instruction, the Hole-in-the-Wall method relies on a playground-like environment. Most importantly, minimally invasive edu­cation doesn't require teachers. Currently there's a projected global short­age of 18 million teachers over the next decade."
>
>  
> Author: Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler 
> Title: Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think 
> Publisher: Free Press 
> Date: Copyright 2012 by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler 
> Pages: 174-176
>
>
>

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

State Funding of Public Education...the Kansas court case:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/opini ... inion&_r=0

~

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

According to the National Student Clearinghouse, 56% of students in the U.S. who started college in 2007 have completed a degree.

~
Last edited by CarmelaBear on Sat Feb 01, 2014 11:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

The following is a quote from a New York Times piece on the factors that drive success in America.
It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success. The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good enough. The third is impulse control.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opini ... 40126&_r=0

~

Cindy B.
Working Associate
Posts: 4719
Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:49 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Post by Cindy B. »

These are all narcissistic traits, by the way.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

:shock:

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

Image
[From Wiki. Caravaggio, 1590's.]

Narcissus was a Greek hunter, known for his good looks. He saw himself in the reflection of a pool of water, fell deeply in love with himself and died of too much self-admiration.

There are a number of ways that human behavior can be judged, and when people who experience what is called "success", we judge their achievements and the price paid for them. Sometimes people with extraordinary gifts, especially in the ability to earn money as an attractive or entertaining or highly intelligent person, we have a strong interest or need to feel good about that person. We want, and perhaps need, for the high achiever to have a high emotional I.Q. along with the good looks and brains.

What I suspect is that for some people who must focus like a laser on some important activity, concerns for the feelings of others may take a back seat to the perfection of a task or endeavor. I doubt that it is possible to achieve anything in life without risking the fragile ego of the person who looks up to you and needs your attention and empathy.

When I took a course in college on abnormal psychology, the professor instructed us on the criteria for clinical diagnosis. He said the medical label is attached when

1) the behavior is repeated many times, and

2) the behavior is annoying to others.

There may have been a third item, but that class happened in the early 1970's, and the memory of it is receding. What struck me was that achievements and mental illness had similar characteristics, except for the part about "annoying others". Envy and jealousy can occur in competitive situations, and nearly every single person who ever surpassed a competitor has been accused of excess egotism by a less successful peer, and every achiever risks having to become self-centered in order to master a skill or task.

Sometimes it is not so much the individual personality that is being judged as it is the quality of interpersonal relationships. The true achiever is self-aware enough to understand the need to seek the approval of those in the immediate vicinity. Pride is offset by the feeling that one must achieve worthwhile goals in a way that is considerate of the feelings of others. We expect the winners of statuettes to thank everybody. We demand that folks who describe themselves not indulge in boasting. There is an etiquette for achievement, and when we repeatedly miss the mark, we suffer reproachment, condemnation and punishment.

It is not enough to be easy on the eyes or talented. One must have proper social skills to succeed in life, if only enough to avoid becoming too annoying to the people upon whom we depend for sustenance.

~

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

Okay, now I remember the third thing Dr. Koenig said about abnormal behavior.

Abnormal human behavior is

normal behavior

repeated many times,

and it annoys other people.

That's the whole DSM in a nutshell.

~

Behaving is normal. Annoying other people is crazy.

~

CarmelaBear
Associate
Posts: 4087
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2002 3:51 pm
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Post by CarmelaBear »

In one of many Harvard publications, I read that there is some evidence to suggest that one clue (NOT proof) of the possibility of a narcissistic personality is found in a person's signature. Those who have huge signatures are more likely to show traits of narcissism. There are exceptions, but a really out-sized John Hancock suggests a second look.

~

Locked