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Education
Readings
By Allan Alach
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email
it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz
Why
I Teach
‘Every
action, every thought spent on these children is holy. The tiniest gesture is
magnified through infinite time and space. When I help a child gain confidence
in her reading, I help not just her. I help everyone she will ever come into
contact with –her co-workers, her friends, family, even her own children if she
someday has some.’
How
can teachers encourage more girls to study mathematics?
‘As
a maths teacher at a large sixth form college, I’m concerned by the
disproportion of female students in the department. I spoke to three groups of
girls in year 12 about their experiences; one not studying maths, those
studying single maths, and those studying double maths. Based on their
feedback, I have the following suggestions for encouraging more girls to take
the subject at A-level.’
Imagined
futures 5: Robot teachers?
Steve Wheeler:
‘In
a conversation with Sugata Mitra several years ago, the novelist Arthur C.
Clarke stated: 'Any teacher who can be replaced by a computer ... should be.'
Clarke
was right of course. Teachers cannot be compared to machines, and should
certainly never function as such. If they do, then they aren't teaching.’
Spinning
Plates -we need to drop some
‘Workload
is the issue that won't go away, perhaps quite rightly so, it is not sorted.
As teachers, and leaders, we are plate spinners. However, we sometimes need to
work out what plates we can afford to drop. This is perhaps the single most
important question that all of us should be asking - if I don't do this, what
will happen?’
Why
Teaching Kindness in Schools Is Essential to Reduce Bullying
‘
If
I was teaching Social Studies today…
‘Some
folks know that I started my education career as a middle school Social Studies
teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina. If I was still doing that now, I would be
incredibly excited because so many wonderful resources would be available to my
classroom. For instance, if I was teaching Social Studies today…’
Contributed
by Bruce
Hammonds:
Nine reasons New Zealand's National Standards
aren’t working (and other issues with our education system)
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| Out with standardisation |
‘Sometime during the 1970s, jet
engines superseded propeller driven planes for most domestic air travel in New
Zealand, as it had for pretty much all international flights. The same should
now happen to an archaic back-to-basics system like National Standards, which a
modern understanding of effective teaching and learning had rendered out of
date before they were even introduced.’
Embracing Failure: Building a Growth Mindset Through the Arts
"Students have to take
risks," says Cristina Gonzalez, the former chair of NMSA's visual arts
department. "That’s something that is so unique to learning in the arts.
Great art comes from risk taking, from being willing to fail. Maybe it will
work. Maybe I'll discover something about myself, something about my capacity
that I wasn't even aware of, and that's so exciting for a student.”
How To Weave Growth Mindset
Into School Culture
‘The Academy of Health and
Medicine, a small learning community within Arroyo High School in California,
has been pioneering a focused approach to teaching growth mindset that starts
with
From
Bruce’s ‘goldie oldies’ file:
The
teacher’s role in the creative process.
‘
Learning
is about constructing meaning.
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| Dame Marie Clay |
‘Marie
Clay was 'constructivist' or more accurately a 'co-constructivist' believing,
like such researchers as Jerome Bruner, Piaget and Vygotsky that students
create their own meanings and that this is best achieved by sensitive teacher
interaction, always leaving the responsibility of learning in the child's
hands. Holdaway(79)calls this need to make meaning a 'semantic drive' - one
that it put at risk by insensitive teachers who do not value student creativity
as the source for all learning.’
Cathy
Wylie outlines new wave of change for New Zealand Schools! NZ Labour has an alternative
‘
In
the 1980s a new political ideology swept through Anglo American countries. It
was a time of dramatic change as the democratic welfare state was replaced by
what has come to be known as a ‘Market Forces business oriented’ approach based
on small government, valuing self-interest, privatisation, competition, choice
and accountability. This neo liberal approach was believed to be the only way
to cope with dramatic worsening worldwide economic circumstances. A common
phrase at the time was TINA (there is no alternative).New Zealand was not
immune.’
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| Kathy Wylie |
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