ftp.whtech.com/ftp.whtech.com.tar/ftp.whtech.com/articles/Sughrue/TI-101/2holism.txt

Text File | 2006-10-19 | 10KB | 275 lines

 .IF DSK1.C-3
 
 .CE 10
     ~~~~~ TI-101 ~~~~~

     OUR 4/A UNIVERSITY
 
     by Jack Sughrue
     Box 459
     E.Douglas MA 01516
 .CE
    #2 Holism
     Happy New Century



     Last time, Class, in our TI-101
 classroom we introduced the
 historical perspective of public
 education in a few strong words.  We
 stated that some of the wrongs with
 our schools today is the profiteering
 by the big book industry who would
 like all our children to be into some
 kind of large-scale, lock-stepping
 curriculum as devised by them.
 [Close to 100% of all the schools in
 America have curriculums established
 by publishers and screwed into place
 by administrative bureaucrats.  They
 are not created by the teachers, the
 trained professionals who work
 directly with the children.  Once in
 a while - such as the school in which
 a friend of mine teaches 3rd graders
 - a school is blessed with an
 intelligent, child-oriented principal
 who is not afraid to empower her
 teachers.  But this scenario is truly
 rare in our country.]
     Which brings me back to THE
 REVOLUTION in education I discussed
 during our last class.  This is the
 revolution of holism in education.
 It is an international grass roots
 approach to learning.  Though the
 spelling is H O L I S M, the meaning
 does not come from "holy" but from
 "whole."  Why don't THEY spell it
 "wholism?" you may ask.
 Unfortunately, you may ask in vain.
     But Whole Language is what is
 under discussion here.  Whole
 Language is the most prominent
 movement in the revolution.  It is a
 philosophy that asks how children
 learn and then seeks ways to provide
 those opportunities for the child.
 It is, in short, a research-based
 philosophy and an intellectual
 attitude and a creative style that
 considers the developmental learning
 stages of the children as a group and
 each child individually.  But what is
 it, specifically?
     Well, let's look at product
 results first, Class, although Whole
 Language Educators will be the first
 to say that process rather than
 product is the goal of W.L.:
     In the standard achievement tests
 scores given world-wide the U.S.
 ranks 47th.  On those same tests New
 Zealand is 1st.  New Zealand has
 close to 100% of its teachers, K-12,
 using W.L.  New Zealand has the
 highest rate of literacy of any
 country in the English-speaking
 world.
     Now back to how W.L. works and
 what it is.  In the U.S. we have had
 a long history of process
 methodology. Unfortunately, it has
 never been a part of mainstream
 education.  Like jazz, as musically
 intricate as any form of music on the
 planet, has never become the
 mainstream of American culture.  But
 there were many educators who
 understood how children think and how
 children learn.  These people have
 taught and have written books and
 have done research.  But, except for
 the unusual teacher or an extremely
 rare school staff, few people had
 access to these ideas and materials
 and methodologies.  Such things as
 the Teacher-Writer Collaborative in
 New York, the Bay Area Project in
 California, and the Framingham
 Writing Project in Massachusetts
 spread the word through research,
 printed materials, workshops, teacher
 training programs, sweat, blood, and
 tears. But these were a few of the
 isolated programs and projects and
 groups that sought to integrate the
 curriculum by starting at Square One
 and helping the students learn from
 their own strengths in a positive
 "unending" environment which tied
 various aspects of learning into
 complex, relevant activities:
 thinking on a large scale,
 understanding analogies, making
 connections, discovering solutions.
     To explain another way, Class:
     Most of us grew up learning
 little isolated skills.  We learned
 to Captitalize on the 9th week of
 school, let's say, in the 8th Grade.
     Following that week, during which
 we'd be forced to learn the 60-odd
 capitalization rules for Friday's
 test, we'd leap into a couple days of
 hyphens and dashes, before going on
 to colons and semi-colons, and so
 on.
     Isolated.  Irrelevant.  Boring.
 And not a good learning environment.
 We learned for the immediate tests
 and could not apply these "learned"
 skills to our daily (and real world)
 writings.
     But such isolated, "testable"
 skills are a publisher's dream and an
 administrator's idea of Heaven.
 Because the kids can be tested on
 each of these isolated pieces,
 numbers can be attached to their
 names.  These numbers can then be
 sorted into descending order and
 grades issued based on this garbage.
     This has nothing to do with
 learning, with life-long skills, with
 internalizing and ownership.  This
 has to do with outside forces trying
 to jam 19th Century methods down the
 throats of the people who will be
 running the 21st Century.
     Bad stuff.
     Take almost any English book you
 can get your hands on, and you will
 not find any writing activities (or
 few except in the most recent books
 and then as a way to thwart the
 movement away from texts). The books
 tell, tell, tell, tell how YOU are
 supposed to know this rule and that.
 The books test, test, test.  They
 introduce the English materials in
 the most inane ways.  For the most
 part, traditional English text books
 are sappy, to say the least, and
 anti-education to be really honest.
 And, except in a splashy, surface way
 haven't really changed since
 McGuffey's Readers of a century ago.
     At the time of the Industrial
 Revolution the sum of human knowledge
 doubled about every 150 years; at the
 turn of this century it doubled about
 every 75 years; after World War II
 every 25 years; in 1990 every 9
 months!
     We still need to teach our kids
 skills, but we need to teach them
 DIFFERENT skills, better skills, more
 relevant skills, as "coverage" is
 impossible.  [By the time a science
 book is researched and written and
 edited and printed and sold and
 distributed and finally used in a
 classroom it is already quite a few
 years out of date.  And this is not
 just for info about our Solar System,
 for example, since the Voyager trips;
 it is about dinosaurs, which we know
 more about today than we did last
 year.  Information progresses at a
 quantum rate, and this is true in
 every area of our real as well as
 academic lives.] Coverage is
 impossible, Class.  Remember that.
 It's going to be on your next test.
     We need to teach our kids HOW to
 think.  Informational regurgation is
 no longer relevant as we swing into
 the 21st Century.  We need to teach
 our kids HOW to think, so they can be
 prepared for the future.  And no
 matter how much we may long for the
 good ol' simple days of yore, they
 just ain't a'comin' back.  We are -
 for better or worse - in the
 Electronic Age.  And our kids, if
 they are going to compete with the
 rest of the world or if they are just
 simply going to keep America great,
 have got to become thinkers.  They've
 got to become thinkers who can use
 the tools of the future NOW.
     Einstein (Albert) was asked for
 his phone number by a reporter.  He
 looked it up in the phone book,
 astounding the reporter.  Einstein
 explained that it would be foolish to
 clutter up his brain with anything
 that could be looked up.
     If Einstein felt he should not be
 cluttering up his brain with useless
 information, maybe we could all take
 heed.
     Let's give our kids and everyone
 else's kids a headstart for the next
 century by supporting our overworked
 teachers (instead of bashing them)
 and joining forces with them to
 provide a new environment in schools
 and in our homes. Let's advocate FOR
 our kids and their teachers.  On
 60-MINUTES, recently, Andy Rooney
 said the real problem with education
 today is not the teachers and not the
 schools but that "there are too many
 dumb kids," and, worse, too many dumb
 parents who don't prize education,
 who don't value learning (thus, too
 many dumb kids).  I believe, truly,
 that we can get rid of this dumbness
 (which Steve Allen calls "DUMBTH" in
 a wonderful book by that name about
 the state of American thinking) by
 turning off the electronic
 babysitters (TVs and Nintendos) and
 get the kids into electronic tutors
 (computers) and maybe even (gasp!)
 books!
     And here we are at the point of
 these classes: our TIs and what they
 can do to reverse this terrible
 dumbing trend in our country.
     We'll take this up in our next
 class by introducing you to some of
 our brave TI-World educational
 experts and what they have offered
 and how we can use their gifts.
     Your homework is to dust off all
 your your educational cartridges
 (which includes TI-WRITER, of course,
 as well as TERMINAL EMULATOR and
 MINI-MEMORY (think about it), as well
 as DRAGON MIX, READING RALLY,
 SCHOLASTIC SPELLING, and BEGINNING
 GRAMMAR).  You don't have to pass in
 any papers next session, but you must
 be prepared to present a 10-minute
 talk on at least two of your selected
 cartridges, being prepared to defend
 its educational relevance to the
 child of the future.
     Be early for TI-101 next time and
 get a good seat up front.  Adios.
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