On a recent visit to the reputed Rishi Valley school in rural Andhra Pradesh, India (past posts on the philosophy of Rishi Valley here, and here) two friends and I had the chance to visit a rural school operated by Rishi Valley, under the banner “RIVER” (Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources).
This one room schoolhouse typically housed kids aged 4 to 10, one main teacher, and one assistant. Students sat on the floor, with large square work tables a foot or so off the ground.
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I am (re-)launching this blog to explore alternative models of schooling, and frankly to force myself to keep up with my own dreams! I have now observed and taught in classrooms where schooling is still more focused on the intellect than on a holistic approach to learning that integrates subjects, along with other important dimensions (the emotional, social, physical, spiritual), that I know have contributed towards my own happiness. On a practical level, our mainstream models of schooling just aren't as effective as they could be. Everything from rote memorization to a lack of responsibility for learning on the part of students; talking heads at the front of classrooms, and poor measures of success (standardized testing) are still rampant. On the flip side (pun intended :)), approaches such as the flipped classroom, and tools such as the Khan Academy have garnered a lot of support, and older models of Gurukuls and visions of schools in nature keep me dreaming! I don't think everything with our education system is "wrong"; it is also important to acknowledge the strengths and improvements in current models, which I will continue to explore. So, the re-launch of my blog is as much about planting seeds for my own learning in this space as it is about sharing and connecting with some of you. Some of these ideas have been around for centuries. Some are more innovative. Either way, for me, the time for these ideas is NOW. To start, an excellent overview of various models and philosophies of education is given by Ron Miller, and gives useful context for the 'alternative' education space. The holistic approach really resonates with me but the others have elements I like too. Feel free to share your thoughts - and thanks for joining me! If given the chance, would you go back and re-live high school for a day? Recently, one teacher did just that. Alexis Wiggins took on the task of spending two days in the shoes of a grade 10 high school student to aid in her new role as a Learning Coach. Here were her key takeaways with my thoughts below (see the original post here) 1. Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting I was drained, and not in a good, long, productive-day kind of way. No, it was that icky, lethargic tired feeling. Thanks to @SirKenRobinson for posting about this little gem of a film recently (full film here). The threats of imposing one system regardless of local tradition - what harm has already been caused by such "modern" education? On a deeper level, how will we work to prevent further cultural erosion through schooling? An impressive "cast" is featured in the film: Wade Davis (his site is worth checking out - fascinating photography), Vandana Shiva (heavy hitter in the activist world), Helena Norberg-Hodge, and Manish Jain, along with some beautiful footage from Ladakh. The film highlights how over 90% of students in Ladakh are deemed "failures" through school, and are not able to enter the global economic system as intended. Norberg-Hodge contrasts this with the struggle they face back home, and the value of ancient cultural knowledge: There is no doubt that traditional forms of knowledge fostered sustainability... once they have been educated in "modern" schools, they literally don't know how to survive in their own environment. It's high time we turned the tables - what can we learn from these ancient forms and systems? Davis provides excellent examples of how local systems of education shape important differences in people and how they relate to the earth; a warning not to keep pushing for universal, uniform education. He gives the example of a child raised in Colorado versus one raised in southern Peru under different systems of belief and knowledge. Say the child in Colorado is raised with the belief that the mountain is inert and waiting to be mined. This child will have a very different relationship to the earth than the child in Peru who believes that the mountain has an active spirit, and sees it as a protective force. In this case, one system clearly lends itself to resource misuse, and the other can help us move towards true sustainability. Finally, Vandana Shiva warns of the shift from valuing wisdom to valuing information that is impacting our development as people: We have moved from wisdom to knowledge, and now we are moving from knowledge to information, and that information is so partial that we are creating incomplete human beings. The film doesn't knock our systems of education entirely (but does come close!). It does provide a lot of food for thought and powerful critique, and re-inspires me in thinking about alternative models.
To see the whole film (64 minutes and entirely worth it!), and read some excellent posts, visit: www.schoolingtheworld.org When I was in elementary school, I loved receiving little sticker stars when I did well on a math test or spelling bee. I was also shattered when I was told I was weak in spatial reasoning. But do gold stars and “Well done!” comments really help us learn? And how can we stop kids from giving up on ‘weak’ areas? Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, recently posted an article about his son’s adventures with reading, and why he will never tell his son he is smart. Rather than congratulating him when he succeeds with words he already knows, Khan praises him when he struggles through a new word; when he perseveres. This approach that Khan is putting into practice, of rewarding persistence rather than right answers, reflects research from Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck. Dweck has studied the ‘growth mindset’ for decades and explains the difference between a growth mindset and an opposing fixed mindset: In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it. The idea, then, is to encourage students to keep at it with problem solving, to not give up, and to be allowed to really learn from mistakes rather than avoid them. This doesn’t sound much different than what creativity experts or entrepreneurs may tell us, as the infographic from Vinod Khosla (founder of Sun Microsystems) demonstrates above.
As straightforward and obvious as it may seem, many of us adults don’t really encourage a growth mindset in the feedback we give people. A couple examples from a fellow blogger: Just saying “Good job!” or “You don't know how to use semi-colons” isn’t as useful as more specific, growth oriented feedback. Instead, saying "I can really see effort in your revision" or "You haven't mastered semi-colons yet" encourage process and suggest growth and mastery. Apart from the fact that nobody really masters the use of semi-colons (The Oatmeal calls them "the most feared punctuation on earth"), encouraging this mindset does take more patience, and a bit more effort. In the long run though, we will have people more inclined to not give up on their learning - seems like a pretty good payoff to me. For now, I’m going back to my grade 3 self and telling her: “You haven’t mastered spatial reasoning… YET!” There is still hope! *Bonus* Tips from the Oatmeal on semi-colon use: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon I love Tina Fey. There is something about her clever style of humour, her quirkiness, and honesty that make me want to be the woman’s friend. Not to mention her amazing impersonation of Sarah Palin or the gem of a show she created in 30 Rock (some Jack Donaghy highlights here). But one of my favourite contributions that Fey has given the world boils down to two simple pages from her book “Bossypants”, in what she calls “Tina Fey’s Rules of Improvisation that will Change your Life”. She starts with the idea of open-mindedness: The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. Always agree and SAY YES. When you’re improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we’re improvising and I say, “Freeze, I have a gun,” and you say, “That’s not a gun. It’s your finger. You’re pointing your finger at me,” our improvised scene has ground to a halt. But if I say, “Freeze, I have a gun!” and you say, “The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!” then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun. Recently I’ve seen some posts on the “Unschooling” movement, a distinct form of homeschooling founded on a philosophy of freedom-based learning, allowing kids to learn through natural exploration. They don’t follow a set curriculum; instead these kids are encouraged to initiate their own learning, spend a lot more time outdoors and exploring their creativity, with facilitation by their parents. Traditional homeschooling has a fundamental difference when compared with unschooling; the former still involves the following of curricula, just from the home environment, with more flexibility. So what are the proposed benefits of unschooling? As this article by Sarah Boesveld explains: Proponents say it (unschooling) raises self-aware, inquisitive and worldly young adults who care about learning and have pursued passions they wouldn’t have otherwise found on the scheduled treadmill that is school. The same article estimates 100,000 students homeschooled in Canada, with 10% of those students being “unschooled”.
A recent study undertaken by researchers from Harvard and the University of Virginia had surprising results: more often than not, men would rather give themselves a slight shock treatment, than have to sit alone with their thoughts. (This "Wired" news article summarizes the study’s findings as does this article from the University of Virginia).
People argue that we need to be able to multitask; that we are social beings; that of course people feel like they are losing it when they are left alone to do nothing - this IS torture! Or is it? Is there value in removing stimulation once in a while to deal with ourselves? I touched on this in an earlier post; even students can benefit from learning to deal with boredom. I recently spent a week living in silence with strangers. At first, it did feel a bit torturous for my mind (“What am I doing here? Why does that guy slurp his tea in the most irritating way possible? I should have chosen the yoga retreat!”). But after giving it a fair shot, I will say that the practice of mindfulness, and “insight meditation” or Vipassana opened my eyes to some simple (but not always easy) techniques to live with more presence and start to deal with the mind. As Jon Kabat-Zinn (professor of Medicine and founding Director for the Centre for Mindfulness at UMass) writes: Now that we’ve explored what he views as the purpose of education, and the important roles of parents and teachers, we can finish our review of Krishnamurti’s “Education and the Significance of Life” by considering the type of schooling he proposed. Krishnamurti first places emphasis on the failure of large institutions: A large and flourishing institution in which hundreds of children are educated together, with all its accompanying show and success, can turn out bank clerks and super-salesmen, superficial people who are technically efficient; but there is hope only in the integrated individual, which only small schools can help bring about. He pushes us to re-think the common idea that we need to start on a large scale to effect change; that instead, we need to act, beginning with ourselves and our children:
Recently, I've been coming across posts and people who believe in a "free" approach to education, allowing kids' natural exploration guide their own learning, and having them do this outside the confines of a formal school. I like this in theory; but in practice I wonder about the competencies parents need to guide this experiential learning. Continuing on from my post on the ‘right kind of education’, Krishnamurti places a lot of emphasis on the role of both parents and teachers. With the challenge of developing integrated individuals, parents and teachers need to be integrated themselves. One of my favourite Krishnamurti quotes sums this up: What we are in ourselves is much more important than the traditional question of what to teach the child. He goes on to explain that our fears from childhood are often not dispelled by parents nor teachers, which is dangerous as we grow up with these fears dominating our judgment and preventing deeper learning: ..there cannot be intelligence as long as there is fear. Fear perverts action and is one of the causes of self-centered action.. To be without fear is the beginning of wisdom, and only the right kind of education can bring about the freedom from fear in which alone there is a deep and creative intelligence. Krishnamurti also boldly calls parents out for failing to care enough to transform society, and instead continuing the status quo:
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AuthorA passionate educator.. on a quest for a schooling model to love! Archives
August 2017
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