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12/10/04 WSJ Article on How Schoolchildren Learn
Posted by Bill Ellis on 12/17/2004
In Reply To:12/10/04 WSJ Article on How Schoolchildren Learn Posted by Sandy Harlow on 12/11/2004
Does this fit with the mantra
"Everyone should have the right, the freedom, the resources and the opporunties to learn what they want, when they want, and how they want?"
Bill Ellis
>
> BOOK REVIEW
>
>
> Can schools be transformed to learning communities? that is the
> question that comes to mind in reading Ted Kolderie's "Creating the
> Capacity to Change: How and Why Governors are Opening a New Schools
> Sector in Public Education." The book's answer to that question is a
> resounding YES! And it shows that it is already happening.
>
> Kolderie covers all the arguments that current schools are out of
> dated and failing both their students and society. He then argues
> that schools need a new design that motivates students. He points out
> that in these schools:
> " ... Learning would be individualized. Students would get real scope
> to purse their interests, Different students would work on different
> things. Time would be come a variable. Some students would work
> faster than other; spend more time on some things than on others. At
> times students would take courses; at times they would not: They would
> learn by working on projects. Teachers would function less as
> instructors, more as coaches or advisers. Learning would be less
> building-bound, less confined to teacher and textbook ..."
>
> Kolderie quotes Albert Shanker, past president of the American
> Federation of Teachers, and New York Times Columnist, to strengthen
> his
> position:
> " ...We all know that every person learns at a different rate. But
> since most schools organize learning through lectures and set lessons,
> the student had better learn not at their own rate but at the rate
> that the teacher presents the material. This is, of course, not the
> teacher
> fault: It is what he or she is expected to do. Some student will be
> bored because they already know it; others will be left behind
> because they can't move that quickly. Teachers are urged to
> individualize instruction. The trouble is, in the typical school structure it's
> almost impossible really to do it. ... We'll need to restructure
> schools so that there are aren't only one or two methods available to
> reach kids We meed a system that doesn't blame the kids because the
> way the actually learn doesn't happen to fit the system's 150-year-old
> ideas about how kids are supposed to learn ..."
>
> On this background the 187 page book goes on to explore who has the
> responsibility and motivation to transform the school system. in
> detailed analysis of teachers, school boards, unions, departments of
> education, and other parts of the system, he concludes that none of
> them have the incentive nor the means, although many of them recognize
> the need. This is the typical 'March To Folly' of Barbara Tuckman.
> The system has a built in inertia that goes on because it is expected
> to go on. The two elements of society that the author believes that
> might be able to lead the change are the students, with their
> families, who have the knowledge and the interest, and the legislators and
> governors that have the ability. The good news is that in many
> states a coalition of these two groups have already started the change.
>
> The author believe that an important component of this change is the
> Charter school movement. Not all charter schools are really that
> involved in transforming the system. Nor is all charter school
> legislation progressive enough to promote it. Too many charter schools
> are just more of the same. Too often the state education system is
> does not have the time or ability to think or act outside of its
> current operations. But some states have established new entities
> just to sponsor charter schools. In others sponsorship has been
> extended to institutions of higher education where some colleges of
> education have taken responsibility. In others community colleges and
> small liberal arts colleges have extended their mandate into the K-12 range.
>
> Some of these charter schools are of a radically different physical
> design. Large spaces, like modern office buildings, are divided into
> removable cubicles. Some for individual projects others for group
> discussions. Some of the charter schools have no classes, students
> work only jointly on topics they have chosen themselves. Some are
> carried out only in the building, others require work on a farm,
> factory, park or other outside facility. In many parents and teachers
> are present to assist the students. In others the students are left on their own.
>
> In one example given in the book, students in Kansas wondered about
> the issue of evolution that was a hot topic in electing and
> un-electing school board members. The question opened up in many
> directions -- It's history, Darwin, the voyage of the Beagle, natural
> science, religion, genetics, fossils, continental drift, geology, and others.
> Almost any other topic, with teachers free to teach, can lead broadly
> into many fields of knowledge.
>
> Organization also varies broadly among charter schools. The book
> particularly explores the control and ownership by a cooperative of
> teachers. The co-op is a non-profit that runs its charter school
> program with a grant from the school district. Member teachers elect
> their own board and make their own contracts for space, supplies,
> food, salaries transportation and other necessities.
>
> This book makes a strong case for transforming the school system. It
> supports flexibility, choice, freedom an experimentation of charter
> schools toward that end. It's weaknesses, if any, are: First in not
> recognizing the many other learning modalities that are giving
> participants broader freedom to learn -- unschooling, homeschooling,
> democratic schools, cyberschools, Independent Study Programs and
> others; Second, it does not move beyond the K-12 school system.
> Today the information age demands life-long self-learning. Knowledge
> is developing too rapidly for schools to impart the skills needed for
> a full and productive life; Third, current brain research and current
> technologies have opened a wide range of learning possibilities that
> make radically different learning modalities important; Fourth
> social, political and economic needs of the day require that future
> citizens today are free from the authoritarian, hierarchal,
> materialistic, and competitive school system; And fifth the rights of
> self-learners and, when necessary, their parents.
> .
>
> But the goal of this book is to wake up governments to the failure of
> the current system and the need for new ways to learn. It does well
> in doing that. It can be downloaded in full from URL:
> http://www.educationevolving.org
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