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Standardising education Educational Readings By Allan Alach I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz Transmit, regurgitate. Transmit, regurgitate. Transmit, regurgitate… Why do we believe that this model is adequate for the demands of a complex, gl obal innovation society? http://bit.ly/2wNgNiG Raising an UnTrump Alfie Kohn ‘ When the words “Trump” and “children” appear in the same sentence, it’s often because the writer is trying to figure out how to protect the latter from the former . How do we shield our offspring not only from what this man does (particularly if the youngsters in question are at risk of being harassed or deported) but from who he is? How do we explain to our kids that someone who bullies, lies, and boasts about assaulting women has made it to the White House? The news these days presents parents and educators with what might be described as a series of teachable moments that we never asked for and cann...

Teaching is assisting students learn for themselves Educational Readings By Allan Alach I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz Sir Ken Robinson's education revolution   A refresher course for you about Sir Ken . Interesting little anecdote here - a Liverpool music teacher had two of the Beatles in his class yet failed to recognise their musical talents. That’s a lesson that shows how unreliable assessment and teacher judgement is, so why does the system persist in trying to prove otherwise? ‘ Robinson believes that the current systems of mass education are outmoded, too standardised, and stifle true learning. "My view of it is that in many respects they are modelled on principles of factory production, like, for example, we educate our kids in batches by age - all the three-year-olds, all the four-year-olds, shunting through the system. There's no educational reason to do that - it's an efficiency ideal.”’...

Education Readings By Allan Alach Apologies for the absence of readings last week . I was hit by a double whammy – our internet connection went down for 48 hours, and then, as soon as that was restored, my computer decided to go on strike. In the end I had to erase the hard drive and reinstall everything. Being a wise person, I had good back ups so it was only an inconvenience rather than a disaster.  Do you have good backups in place, including some off site ? Remember that there are two kinds of computers in the world - those that have had a major hard drive issue, and those that are going to have one… and once you’ve lost your data, that’s it.   Goodbye to all those precious photographs … I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz Digital Natives Do Not Exist, Claims New Paper ‘ But taken as a whole, digital natives might be a myth , argues a paper published in Teaching and Teacher Education.  Students who gre...

Alan is having trouble with his broadband so here is a posting from 2010 that is worth a read. Interested viewers should take the time to explore the school's website http://www.blueschool.org/ Th e Blue School in Lower Manhattan was established by members of the Blue Sky Company -a company involved in helping organisations develop creative ideas. They wanted to establish a school that celebrated the creativity and ideas of children - they wanted to establish a school they would have liked to have gone to - a dream school for their own children. They wanted school committed to keeping alive the sense of wonder, play and joy of young children . The school currently caters for children from 2 to 6. The ideas will not be new to creative teachers, particularly those that 'teach' younger children but their emphasis on making student inquiry central is a challenge to us all in these day of making literacy and numeracy achievement central If you are interested visit their site....

Education Readings Creativity - do we really value it By Allan Alach I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz Why there’s no such thing as a gifted child ‘… the latest neuroscience and psychological research suggests most people, unless they are cognitively impaired, can reach standards of performance associated in school with the gifted and talented . However, they must be taught the right attitudes and approaches to their learning and develop the attributes of high performers – curiosity, persistence and hard work, for example – an approach Eyre calls “ high performance learning ”. Critically, they need the right support in developing those approaches at home as well as at school.’ http://bit.ly/2uXP9xf Challenging the Status Quo in Mathematics ‘In short, building relationships between how to solve a problem and why it's solved that way helps students use what they already know to solve new problems that they face ...