What Makes an Educated Society?
New Mind-Set is Needed for Four-Day Scho...
Parents Important to Children’s Su...
By Ben Graffam Recently, Keli Stargel and Rhonda Storms wrote legislation that would evaluate parents of students. It was a ridiculous idea. Yet, without question, parents play an important role in their children’s success in school. As one who has taught since 1982, I have some thoughts the ways parents might bolster their children’s academic pursuits. The following five...What Do Students Really Need to Learn?
By Ben Graffam A recent cover of Education Leadership (EL) proclaims, “What students need to learn.” Its opening editorial ponders what founding father John Adams might believe our generation should study. Would it be science, technology, engineering, or math? Would he bemoan that the arts and specific studies of war and politics are not a major part of our curricula? The...Education’s Purpose Must Be To Liberate ...
By Ben Graffam Recently, a former educator wrote to The Ledger supporting many of Governor Scott’s ideas for reforming education. The writer felt we’d be better off assessing students more often with a national agenda of standardized tests. Mainly, however, his thoughts addressed the idea that schools should build the kind of student who crosses her t’s, follows her math...Our Country Is Test Crazy
By Ben Graffam One of the great difficulties with educational reform is that everyone believes in their own good insights into the process. They feel they could make the whole system better. And why shouldn’t they? Everyone, to some degree or another, has been educated. And if experience is the best teacher, everyone should know what creates good schooling. But this is bad logic,...Learning Paradigms Lead to Richer Outcom...
By Ben Graffam People get confused when thinking of curricula as serving the interests of Johnny and Julie more than it serves specified content. People think students might spend their school years never experiencing necessary classes that make good citizens and good thinking. People fear Johnny won’t be able to read and Julie won’t be able to make change at the grocery register....What if Schools Helped Students Pursue T...
By Ben Graffam One question that arises when we shift toward a paradigm of learning is: What are the subjects our students will learn? In other words, what does the curriculum of a learning school look like? This has been a fairly easy question to answer from a teaching paradigm, and our schools have basically taught the same subjects in the same ways for years. We teach the three...Letting Parents Play a Role in Their Chi...
By Ben Graffam Rick Scott says parents should be able to choose their children’s schools. He says parents know best what is right for their kids. Like many similar arguments, this one seems to be built of good common sense. Indeed, who would know better what is right for a child than a parent? But what does it mean that parents can choose their children’s schools? What will this...Non-Educators Should Know the Full Set o...
By Ben Graffam In a recent Parade interview, Bill Gates made some interesting comments about teachers. Perhaps he’s earned the right. He is a pretty good philanthropist. But what can we make of his comments in light of our discussion on learning paradigms? Gates says “very little is invested in understanding great teaching;” he may be right, to a degree. I’d...What Students Learn Not Nearly As Import...
By Ben Graffam So if we focused on learning rather than teaching, what would change? What does a classroom based on learning look like? Would it be noticeably different from a classroom that focuses on teaching? One of the first things you would notice is that a learning classroom is made up of three kinds of instructional activities: 1. Intentional Engagements:...The Art Of Directed Learning
John Gaddis, in his book, The Landscapes of History, begins by drawing a parallel to a painting. I want to attempt the same here. The reader will benefit from this link, http://www.artchive.com/artchive/E/eakins/gross_clinic.jpg.html, to see the work from which I will draw the following thoughts. *************************** A man, standing with five others, is looking thoughtfully...Learning Changes the World
By Ben Graffam This column will be about education. Specifically it will be about classroom experiences. Those have been different for all of us, and, certainly, each of us feel quite differently about teaching, teachers, learning, and learners. That’s good. Hopefully, these columns will ignite a collaborative conversation between readers who are either teachers or learners or...
From the Publisher, Marialice Quinn
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