Quality Education: Getting things done

I used to blog for my old company, but they took the blog down. I am
not actually allowed to own the writings I put up on that blog, but as
I reference them on occasion in my writing I am putting those articles
up in my archives here for reference sake. I'll put the tag GS on those
articles noting that they were originally published on the http://schoolfinder.globalscholar.com/blog/

Quality
Education: Getting things done

June
9, 2008 – 5:10 am by Brendan

One of the biggest
problems in the U.S. education system is the expectations. Everyone
seems to think schools can and should do and be everything
to everyone.
This is often seen in the curriculum written in almost every state in
the country. It is seen in text books. It is seen in districts and
schools. The “mile
wide inch deep”
curriculum we used to call it. We want students to be experts in
everything possible before leaving school.

I think that too
many folks are afraid that whatever we don’t force down the throats
of our young people they won’t bother to learn when they aren’t
forced to be in school. The problem then becomes how do you fit too
many teaching topics into a limited amount of time? Well you don’t.
What happens is either something gets left out or teachers don’t
spend enough time on each topic for students to get a good grasp of
the concept.

Education should be
exciting to the student. One motivated student will learn more on his
or her own in a month than a reluctant student will learn in a school
year. I knew one teacher who spent over a month teaching a unit using
flight as a theme. His passion for flying was infectious to his
students. They spent weeks discussing airplanes and creating flight
paths and they never realized they were learning among other things
the properties of geometric shapes.

Of course not
everyone reading this is a teacher. Parents and students do not need
to be constrained by the sheer volume of topics schools are
attempting to cover. Go back and read my articles on Fostering
an Independent Spirit
and How
to Keep Students Excited About School.
It is all about getting excited about learning. Find what you like in
the real world and relate it to what you are learning in school. Yes,
you will still have to keep up with the work given by the teacher.
But when you follow your interests you will find you can make time to
lean what you need to know. Even if your only interests are video
games you can find a way to relate that to school and learning.