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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIMA
NEWSLETTER MARCH 1992
~~~~~ 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
I presently teach 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. 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. But what is it,
specifically.
Well, let's look at product
results first, 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.
These were a few of the isolated
programs and projects and groups that
sought to integrate the curriculum by
starting a 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.
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 articles: 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.
.PL 1