How would an engineer design schools from scratch?
on
Improving Education?
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· Score: 1
Hey, remember how engineering works? Get the specs for the hardware or whatever, program to those.
Most of our schools are minor mods on a system designed to educate the inbred, sickly, sons of
European kings. When we want to improve it, we
start with the existing system as a "given."
What if we started with how a child's brain actually works?
Well, it's been done. Maria
Montessori was an M.D. + 4 or 5 Ph.D's, including
child development.
Sister (or Mother?) Maria
looked at the purpose fun serves in the brain:
it's a pointer to the correct next task! Oddly, this actually makes the method unpopular with
both conservatives and liberals due to a polarized view of school. The
strict conservative view
(work hard, school should NEVER be fun) and the
typical loose liberal view (never tell a child waht to do as along as they're non-violent) both give a very different classroom look-and-feel than Montessori gives.
How many adults have the fortutitude to practice
walking, or running, or splashing in the sink,
for hours and hours on end on a routine basis?
None, or very few. As my sister put it "Funny how you never have to tell your kids 'Don't forget to practice climbing all over things all day!'"
And another important point: My children learned
MUCH MORE without parental involvement in Montessori school than they did WITH parental involvement in public school.
I can't seem to get non-geeks to "get" this but...
Given: there are many poor children whose parents
cannot or will never get involved (3 jobs, or
drugs or alcohol, or whatever.)
Then: our generally-announced committment to solve our educational issues via parental involvement amounts to an engineering spec that
says "We will keep those kids in an uneducated state."
(CAVEAT: Just because a school SAYS it is a
Montessori school, at least in the U.S., does not
mean it is truly either quality or Montessori. I'm referring to the design an implementation, not the name.)
Slashdot Mirror
Most of our schools are minor mods on a system designed to educate the inbred, sickly, sons of European kings. When we want to improve it, we start with the existing system as a "given." What if we started with how a child's brain actually works?
Well, it's been done. Maria Montessori was an M.D. + 4 or 5 Ph.D's, including child development.
Sister (or Mother?) Maria looked at the purpose fun serves in the brain: it's a pointer to the correct next task! Oddly, this actually makes the method unpopular with both conservatives and liberals due to a polarized view of school. The strict conservative view (work hard, school should NEVER be fun) and the typical loose liberal view (never tell a child waht to do as along as they're non-violent) both give a very different classroom look-and-feel than Montessori gives. How many adults have the fortutitude to practice walking, or running, or splashing in the sink, for hours and hours on end on a routine basis? None, or very few. As my sister put it "Funny how you never have to tell your kids 'Don't forget to practice climbing all over things all day!'"
And another important point: My children learned MUCH MORE without parental involvement in Montessori school than they did WITH parental involvement in public school.
I can't seem to get non-geeks to "get" this but...
Given: there are many poor children whose parents cannot or will never get involved (3 jobs, or drugs or alcohol, or whatever.)
Then: our generally-announced committment to solve our educational issues via parental involvement amounts to an engineering spec that says "We will keep those kids in an uneducated state."
(CAVEAT: Just because a school SAYS it is a Montessori school, at least in the U.S., does not mean it is truly either quality or Montessori. I'm referring to the design an implementation, not the name.)