tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170747840972931133.post3798497966855524547..comments2023-05-31T09:42:56.522-05:00Comments on #Vanmeter- Leading the Educational Transformation : Make LEARNING the ConstantDeronDurflingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17215926033903403757noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170747840972931133.post-64345119322131857672011-11-08T17:13:52.065-06:002011-11-08T17:13:52.065-06:00I watched Fahreed Zakaria's education special ...I watched Fahreed Zakaria's education special with my 16-year-old son the other night. He has seen Khan Academy videos, and his friends use them for extra help, but the idea of making the videos an actual part of the instruction intrigued him. He came up with the idea of breaking a class of 30 into A and B days, so every other day 15 kids would come to class for more personalized attention and on opposite days would stay home, sleep until noon and watch video lectures and take notes at their leisure. Now there are lots of reasons why this would be a bad idea....but part of the conversation with my son made me realize just how miserable the school day is for him, and he is a kid who likes to learn. He reads non-fiction for fun and loves going to museums. But high school is boring. <br /><br />Now, I know that learning can't be fun all of the time, that there is hard work involved too...but simply adding more of the same to the school day/week/year is absolutely not the solution. I also teach kids who would "jump through hoops" to get less time in school! We need to do school better first, then we talk about doing it more.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08961918965733544135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170747840972931133.post-69028862800327590692011-11-08T15:48:10.540-06:002011-11-08T15:48:10.540-06:00Excellent post Deron! I am afraid the current path...Excellent post Deron! I am afraid the current path is not leading us away from uniformity and a "lock step" process of moving through #x of hours, #x days, at x grade level, because I am x age. We need to accept the fact that kids learn at different rates with different interest and in different environments. We need to create a system that embraces these facts rather than fights them, all while conforming to an "old system". Our system does beat the "love of learning" out of our students as it is currently designed. Until our reform efforts take a look at the root causes rather than taking a "add on" approach, we will fail to make significant improvements in what we do. We need to craft our redesign of our educations system with a blank sheet of paper, rather than trying to write overtop and "copy/paste" other ideas onto an antiquated design. Thanks for sharing your thoughts via this post!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com