Week #9 Educating the Heart

Week Nine Discussions

Please use the reading and video this week to discuss what you find to be the most potent pieces that resonated with you this week.

I really enjoyed Sir Ken Robinson’s video about his thoughts about education.  He had a fun demeanor that brought in the audience and made everyone more interested about his thoughts about education.

One of the most interesting things he discussed was how everyone is put into groups such as special education and education in general.  We are put into categories early on and that is where we stay.  Instead we need to embrace these differences, as Sir Robinson states “Human life thrives off of diversity”.  Because of this lack of diversity there is a 40% dropout rate in the United States.  40% is a large number.  That means that six students in my Kindergarten class this year will not graduate high school!  At age five they are excited about learning and eager to talk about what they want to be when they grow up.  None of them say they don’t want to graduate high school but based on the information from Sir Robinson six will.  What will make them dropout?  For the most part they are happy to come to school each day and are excited to learn!  School should be about learning not about quitting.  Education should be the solution not the problem!

Robinson goes on to say there is a climate crisis in education.  Standardizing education is making it one size fits all.  We are losing our individuality.  I am differentiating in my classroom but I’m not giving an individual test that seems to all-important in education.  Robinson says that personalizing education is part of the solution to solve this crisis.  Most teachers do this on a daily basis without even realizing it; it’s the test that isn’t personalized.  Testing students based on what they know and they have been explicitly taught is different than giving them a test on things they no experience with.  Educators also need to bring the arts back into school, the center of education not an option.  We need to be mindful of our students learning.

The Watson article goes on to discuss how technology is creating a change in education.  Like with most things in education technology has a lot of acronyms, PLEs, LMS, etc., Watson suggests merging areas so the learner has more control.  Education shouldn’t just be a daily part of person’s life instead we need to create lifelong learners who contribute to society.  We as teachers need to make learning less teacher centered for meeting deadlines and learning criteria and make it student center.  That said it easier said than done, educators know that is the right thing to do it’s all of the lawmakers, etc. that need to realize this.  Less testing and more learning!