Archive for the ‘Re-inventing Education Blog’ Category
Caleb Gattegno began work on The Science of Education series of books in 1940. After decades of research and real-world experience teaching all kinds of students to read, write, and do mathematics, he released The Science of Education Part 1: Theoretical Considerations in 1987. This book is renowned for its deep consideration and enlightening conclusions about the problem of education, but it is also a notoriously challenging read. I have decided to take on the challenge, and to summarize each chapter according to my own understanding. I hope to express his ideas clearly and succinctly, without losing the powerful concepts his original words evoke. My next post will be summarizing Chapter 1: How a Science is Born. Wish me luck!
Tags: math, reading, The Science of Education, Words In Color Blog, writing
Category Re-inventing Education Blog | No Comments » | Amy
Educational Solutions has been selected by ELAT, CAFT and other grassroots development groups to participate in mathematics teacher training program in Haiti, December 6-12, 2009. ELAT, an acronym for Elevating Learning Above Teaching, is a not-for-profit organization whose goal is to train teachers with a view to creating a local network of teachers who can train other teachers. Esaie Pierre and Dr. Arthur Powell came to Educational Solutions with a proposal for this training, and we have enthusiastically agreed to participate.
ELAT has chosen the pedagogical approach and materials of Dr. Caleb Gattegno and Educational Solutions in its developmental projects, knowing that the materials apply in a variety of difficult educational circumstance and can easily overcome local language challenges. ELAT’s international experience combined with Educational Solutions’ business, educational and operational skills are a recipe for successful training in underdeveloped regions of the world. The December 2009 project involves training teachers in mathematics. Future projects will include literacy and foreign language learning.
I will keep a log of our activities, and post updates from Haiti.
Sima Gandhi
Category Gattegno Math, Re-inventing Education Blog, Teachers Education Blog | No Comments » | Sima
I now have a better understanding of why it came to me to take care of this project … It is very hard to decide not to keep something! I think because I am new to the work, the attachment was less for me than Eaton! It was an incredible experience to see and touch the vast quantities of work Gattegno created. I asked myself if the man ever slept! There was over 40 years of dust on many of the boxes, some crumbled when touched. There are films and videos in sizes and formats that are unrecognizable to me. The people at ABC crating moved into this building in 1968. Dr. G was friends with Andy Senior and they began storing materials there that same year.
Special thanks to Andy, Marg, Daniel and Cloe for their care of the materials over the years, and for all their help during the clean up.
Category Re-inventing Education Blog | 4 Comments » | Sima
My project for this week is to sort through the New Jersey warehouse and keep all the materials of value, some of which were originally available 40 years ago. With new technologies like print on demand for books and low volume digital printing for charts, much of the need for storing old inventory is gone.
I have found packaging for ‘Mathware’ and ‘Readingware’; these are flip-top boxes which would have held a set of materials for indiviual use – the styling is so retro it seems back in fashion! There are copies of original books, the covers of which have changed 2-3 times since original printing, rolls of film that are about 30 inches in diameter [I am hoping to find a projector!] and some of Gattegno’s fictional works which include paintings done by him. I would love to know how many of you reading this blog have a hard cover copy of The White Canary? Send me a note or post a comment if you have one!
Its a very unusual feeling to be looking back into history in this way. Wouldn’t it be great to see all of these materials properly restored and displayed for a new generation to see? How about a Gattegno Museum!
Sima
Category Re-inventing Education Blog | 4 Comments » | Sima
Twelve years ago, my friend Eaton told me about a very unusual way he was learning to speak Japanese – the defining feature was that the teacher taught by being silent! The inventor of this approach was Caleb Gattegno, and Eaton told me animatedly how Gattegno’s ideas had affected him. This conversation continued on over time, until I read The Subordination of Teaching to Learning and became infected.
Twelve months ago I decided to leave my old career behind and jump into Educational Solutions with Eaton. Its hard for me to believe that a full year has already gone by … and I secretly think to myself “this really doesn’t feel like work !” I have met many wonderful people around the world using Gattegno’s approach and have been talking about ways of educating that I had never thought of as possible. More than once I have wished that I had been taught with these tools, and everyday I want my daughter Naya to have the chance to enhance her own natural curiosity to learn, and I know these materials offer this opportunity.
Parents everywhere are asking the question “Is my child’s education preparing her [or him] for a world that is becoming smaller and more demanding?” The next generation will need passion, imagination and confidence, and the right education can make that happen. Its an exciting time in education, there is much discussion about the need for change, and I feel happy and very privileged to be part of an approach that makes a change in thinking possible.
I welcome you to get to know how our approach is different and join in a movement to Re-Invent Education.
Sincerely,
Sima Gandhi
Vice President
Category Re-inventing Education Blog | 1 Comment » | Sima
Not long ago, the Maori people of New Zealand were facing a cultural crisis. Their native language began disappearing in the 20th Century, with less than 20% of the Maori population able to speak the language by the 1980’s. The language was not spoken on TV, or on the radio, and even those who knew the language were beginning to speak English at home. While appreciating the value of fluency in English, te reo Maori speakers were faced with the possibility that their language could be lost.
In 1979, a group called Te Ataarangi was formed. It was the leading program to address adult Maori language learning during the early years of the Maori language revitalization movement. The founding members of Te Ataarangi decided to implement a teaching method modeled on Caleb Gattegno’s The Silent Way. They felt that utilizing the colored rods and having the students speak together would be more effective than grammar-based academic approaches for Maori learners. During the organization’s 30-year history, they estimate to have taught more than 30,000 learners.
Today, their approach is still leading the revitalization movement. Founding member Dr. Kāterina Mataira recently won the 2009 Linguapax Prize, established by UNESCO, which honors outstanding work in the field of linguistic diversity and/or multilingual education. Her success in spreading te reo Maori, and her novels and children’s book make Dr. Mataira an influential figure in New Zealand society.
Dr. Mataira established the first Maori language class in a state-run school in 1956. In the mid ’70s she met some American Peace Corps volunteers who had learned Fijian, then taught others, using The Silent Way. The experience stuck with her, and she was inspired to begin her plans for Te Ataarangi. It’s amazing that this bit of inspiration has now reached 30,000 students, and saved a language from near-extinction.
Category Re-inventing Education Blog, The Silent Way | No Comments » | Amy
A pair of Canadian parents recently made a legal document to ensure their children will not be assigned any homework. These parents were fed up with tedious assignments that kept their children awake and weeping in the evenings. Their story was told in the Globe and Mail newspaper, and it turns out that readers have very strong opinions about the role of homework in education.
One commenter who supports homework wrote:
“Homework is a teacher’s way of ensuring that kids are continuously pursuing their studies. Without it, a lot of kids who need help won’t get it until its too late; it won’t be until the big test that a teacher sees a kid isn’t keeping up. The only other option is daily quizzes, which are far more onerous than homework.”
The options for evaluating learning are 1) to assign homework and grade it, or 2) to give daily quizzes and grade those. These two options both seem to involve a lot of extra time and effort for both the student and the teacher. Is it so radical to think that a teacher can evaluate a students’ understanding as they are teaching? There is no need to save evaluation for the end of an assignment or test. Like the commenter said, if a teacher waits to evaluate learning, it’s too late for the student who has already failed a test.
If the class curriculum is designed around the students’ learning, and not the assignments, then learning will come first and unfinished assignments are irrelevant. In the case of these high-volume homework schools, this might mean changing their approach to teaching. The teachers might have to ask more questions like “How do you know? Are you sure? Can you do it again? What if this part changes?” It will become clear at that point who is struggling, and who is ready to transfer their learning to a new challenge. The teacher can then use homework as a venue for practice, or for creative extensions of a concept, but they don’t need it as proof that their students have learned.
Another comment reads:
“These parents are obviously avoiding their parental responsibility and have no sense of time management. They very likely never did their own homework when they were young . . . I assume now, also, that due to their parents meddling, their children are the object of scorn and ridicule for their lazy attitudes.”
The part about “lazy attitudes” is interesting. Desiring effective and efficient use of class time, and planning home education separately is not lazy. Think of adults in the workforce; people who accomplish tasks more efficiently and more quickly are more desirable employees than those who labor on miserably with great difficulty. When we say someone is good at their job, we usually mean they do quality work in a reasonable amount of time, and they do it with a smile. Schoolwork should be the considered in the same way. If a teacher presents challenges, asks guiding questions, evaluates learning, and decides homework is not needed, that doesn’t make them an “easy” teacher, or the students lazy. They are all just good at their jobs.
Category Re-inventing Education Blog | 1 Comment » | Amy
The Canadian Paediatric Society is set to follow their American counterparts in recommending zero screen time for children under 2.
While there are many DVDs that claim to have an educational benefit for babies, a review of 78 international studies found the opposite – TV can actually delay learning in infants. The review, completed early in 2009 by Dimitri A. Christakis, suggested that infant TV-viewing can be associated with delayed language, a shortened attention span and delayed cognitive development.
“Specifically, for each hour of baby DVD’s that infants watched, they knew on average about 6–8 fewer words,” Christakis writes.
The paediatric society and Christakis’ review both say that babies are just too busy for TV; learning to walk and talk are huge undertakings after all.
“. . .the newborn brain triples in size in the first 2 years of life from an average of 333 g to almost 1 kg. This growth occurs in direct response to external stimulation. Early life experiences are critical to developmental trajectories as has been shown in both human and animal studies,” the review says.
It seems that attempts to speed up their natural learning process are not only futile, but distracting. The review found that infants learn language skills better from a native speaker than from a native speaker on a TV screen, and suggests that direct interaction is the best way to foster learning in children under 2. The act of playing also seems to have some role in language development.
“For example, distribution of plastic building blocks together with suggested interactive play activities promoted language development in low-income 18- to 24-month-old children,” the review says.
TV viewing for children under 2 is not banned in Canada or the United States, just officially discouraged. The review found that more than 90% of children in the United States begin watching TV regularly before the age of 2.
If you would like to read the whole review:
http://steinerireland.org/articles/acta_paediatrica.pdf
Category Re-inventing Education Blog | No Comments » | Amy
The U.S. Department of Education recently announced that it will hold public meetings in three different cities this November to learn more about assessing success in schools.
These meetings are to help determine how $4.5 billion in educational funding will be awarded to states entered in the Race to the Top competition.
“The next generation of assessments will provide information that helps accelerate student learning and improve teachers’ practice,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a press release. “At these meetings, experts will give us their best ideas so we can support states’ efforts to build the new assessments our country needs to ensure that our students are prepared for success in college and careers.”
It’s easy to see why they need the meetings; so many gigantic questions need to be answered. How do you know if the students’ learning is accelerated? How can you tell if teaching has improved? And, how can you know if a child is prepared for a career when nobody knows what kind of jobs the future holds? There are big answers for all of these questions, but there are also some general guidelines.
Let’s start with the question of accelerated learning. We know that children move slowly through their education when they are not really learning at all, for example, if they forget the lessons. If a student “forgets” what they were taught, chances are they were asked to “remember” something. Learning simply does not happen through memorization; it happens through awareness. Very few adults can still remember the periodic table of elements that they were told to memorize in high school, but like the old cliché, you never forget how to ride a bike. Learning happens when you come to an awareness about a subject – when you know something to be true and correct. So, if the Department of Education wants to reward the acceleration of learning, the money should go to states that encourage the use of strong natural capacities like observation and experimentation, and discourage reliance on weak capacities like memorization and recitation.
This brings us to the next question: How can you tell if teaching has improved? Improved test scores are not necessarily the result of improved teaching. For instance, higher test scores could just be the result of increased pressure to memorize and perform on tests. The true test of teaching is in the students’ learning. Students will retain information much better if they are presented with challenges rather than facts. The teacher may ask leading questions to help the student come to an awareness, but providing the answers robs the student of the chance to come to the conclusion themselves. Therefore, states that encourage teachers to present challenges instead of facts should get a nice chunk of the Race to the Top money.
Now it comes down to preparing students for a career. Since we have no idea what the world will look like in 20 years or what kind of technology will be mainstream, it is not helpful to explicitly prepare students for our own jobs. What is important is to instill a sense of responsibility, confidence, and the ability to solve problems. Students take responsibility for their own learning when they are presented with challenges. It is up to them to make connections, it is up to them to experiment, and even though a teacher is guiding them through the process, the students feel like they accomplished it themselves. When they are provided with manageable challenges to conquer, they gain positive learning experiences, and feel confident about their skills. A student who can eagerly take on a challenge, and conquer it with confidence has the skills necessary to succeed in college, and in the workforce.
Information regarding the Department of Education’s meetings taken from: U.S. Department of Education
Category Re-inventing Education Blog | No Comments » | Amy
…that in Osaka Japan, in a non-descript school my life would change forever.
My name is Eaton Donald, I was 27 years old, living in Osaka and wanting to learn to speak Japanese. I had already been to 4 other schools, none of which were a good fit for me. Despite that, the desire to learn remained strong. I can still remember walking into a small school called The Center for Learning and meeting a woman named Fusako Allard. Nothing really stood out about the place or Fusako and I nearly left the first meeting, however, I decided it was at least worth a try.
I soon came to learn that the school, the teaching approach, and the materials used were very different. I can remember thinking, why don’t these teachers help me more, why don’t they give me answers, why do I have to get everything perfect before moving on to the next thing, why isn’t there any homework… I can also remember arriving at class at 9:00AM and then being repeatedly stunned and shocked that it was 12:00PM – no break time, no mental strain, no boredom and almost no perception of the passage of time at all.
Most importantly my competence with spoken and written Japanese progressed very quickly.
I was intrigued by this methodology and wanted to learn more. I asked Fusako one day to tell me more about their teaching approach and she walked me over a bookcase and handed me The Science of Education and told me: “Why don’t you start with this.” Over the next 18 months I read over 25 of Gattegno’s books and around 30 of his papers.
I am 43 years old now, and I am still reading Gattegno. I have read and re-read his work several times over.
In 2008 I set forth the goal to bring the Science of Education to your home, classroom and community. I hope you follow us through this blog as we discuss issues, problems, opportunities and solutions in education.
Sincerely,
Eaton Donald
President
Category Re-inventing Education Blog | No Comments » | Eaton
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