Changing Education Paradigms

[Ross]

Changing Education Paradigms

I found this rather interesting.

Not all kids are alike and is the system really fair.

This link is to an animation about this subject.

The animation is almost 12 minutes long.

[Diane Amberg]

That was fun! The technology is better now, but it's not far off from some nifty films I saw in my teaching methods classes back in the 60's Those were the days of the "new math"and learning stations all over the room, along with listening stations and hands on projects.(individual learning)The problem was it took huge amounts of time for the teacher and aides to build and was very expensive to keep going every day and every week all year long. It also meant kids were up out of their seats and busy around the room. Some parents thought that meant lack of classroom discipline unless the kids were doing the dreaded "seat work" in a silent room.  I loved doing "applied" projects..hands on, with individual learning kits and kids working part of the time as teams to meet a challenge or discover something and then reporting back to the rest of the class.....student as teacher! It's just awfully expensive in both time and money.

[Ross]

What I saw was that technology was the distraction.
And to back that up do a google search on hand writing, cursive to be explicit.
It appears that they are discontinuing teaching it.
What do they quit teaching next?

Also the points about ADHD at one time I disbelieved in it.
However, when I adopted my son, the doctors convienced me as was discussed in the animation.
Today, I would tell that doctor where to go. He was required to see a shrink before each time the prescriptions were due to be filled and that was every month. This required driving many mile and missing school. I saw nothing the shrink was doing to help. So, I asked him straight out, "What can you do for my son?" He responded. "Nothing." I asked why we were coming to him? He said what difference does it make, it doesn't cost you nothing. I told him, but it does it cost me my insurance, it cost me time and gas, it cost my son time out of the class room. The man had nothing further to say.

I weaned my son off of those drugs and there has been some change for the better.
I would advise other parents to look closer at this situation.
I still have my work cut out for me, but I don't quit.
I work closely with my sons teachers and principal and superintendent.

Another point I think that was made is the dumbing down of kids with ADHD drugs.

I do agree it is a real hard task for the teachers to make teaching subjects exciting compared to all the high tech and the games and videos available on it.

Diane, perhaps you can explain the reasons for teaching web page design in Jr. High or High School when it is so easy to log on to a free web site and have it give you the tools to easily design a web site. That would appear to me to be a trade school or if they want to learn computer language go to college for that. Very few people that use a computer have use of designing a web page.