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What is school for? Book reflection: Section 25-35

What is School For? By Seth Godin Sections 25-35

I am continuing to read Stop Stealing Dreams: What is School For? For my Learning and Technology class.  I am still enjoying this reading.  Godin makes powerful arguments and has really made me think.

In section 29 The other side of fear is passion really resonated with me.  Godin talks about how there is only two tools for an educator.  The easy one is fear and the other is passion.  “Passion can overcome fear – the fear of losing, of failing, of being ridiculed”.  As Godin explains that individual passion is hard to fit into the industrial model, like school.  Passion fuels dreams and creates change, but we are not creating  passion in schools right now and by default not fueling a change.         

In section 31 Godin says “Our new civic and scientific and professional life, though, is all about doubt. About questioning the status quo, questioning marketing or political claims, and most of all, questioning what’s next”.  If we want our students to question then our schooling model needs to resemble and foster this ability. 

I was reminded of my trip to Tokyo of the last summer by the quote in section 34.  “If a school is seen as a place for encouragement and truth-telling, a place where students go to find their passion and then achieve their goals, it is not a school we would generally recognize, because our schools do none of this”.  Japan’s public schools have taken how society functions and mirrored school and school mirrors society.  There seems to be a definite overlap, that what they are teaching in school is relevant to the real world.  Students take responsibility for cleaning the schools, they don’t have any custodial staff, which you not see in the U.S. public schools.  Omoi is a term that is learned early on in the Japanese culture.  It has to do with your passion and your drive.  If you were to ask anyone what their omoi is for their job they would tell you why they chose that job based on their passion.  When asked why do you go to school many people not just educators would answer that it is for the purpose for completion of a human being. This idea of completing a human being, is not the idea that we would often hear in the U.S.  Often I hear people say we go to school to get a good job.  This is what adults think, and this is what our children think.  They don’t go to school for the love of learning they do it to train for a job.  How in the world can we change this thought and change our schools? I often grapple with this very thought.  How can I make a change, especially when I am just one person. 

20% project reflection March 17th-23rd

As a tradition trained teacher I found this first year teaching Montessori very difficult.  From learning new materials and curriculum, positive discipline and stepping back and becoming a guide for the students and not the source of information. I have also struggled with the fact that my charter school is in its second year of being open and each classroom has a large population of students that came from traditional public school, never had Montessori. As a lower elementary (1-3) teacher it has been difficult getting these students normalized.  Montessori observed that when children are allowed freedom in an environment suited to their needs, they blossom. After a period of intense concentration, working with materials that fully engage their interest, children appear to be refreshed and contented. Through continued concentrated work of their own choice, children grow in inner discipline and peace. She called this process "normalization" and cited it as "the most important single result of our whole work" (The Absorbent Mind, 1949).

I thought with the struggles I have had this school year I thought that I could help my students by learning more of the materials, which lead to my 20% project.  I thought the more I educated myself about the materials the more comfortable I would feel giving lessons with them.  However, I am finding that it is not just feeling comfortable with the materials, but learning the progression of the materials has also helped.     

I still struggle with my experience as a traditional teacher and making the switch to a Montessori teacher.  Every morning from 8:45 - 11:45 is our work period.  I am seeing what Maria Montessori would refer to as “False Fatigue.” it is generally around this time that noise levels tend to escalate in a Montessori environment. Usually there are several wanderers who are restless from their work. As Maria Montessori observed classrooms, she referred to this time as “False Fatigue.” To an outsider, this time may seem disorganized. The Montessori guide notices this phenomenon and remains calm. The students will feel this ease and the restlessness will subside and the students will continue their work until 11:00 a.m.  I recognize that I am still working on staying calm and and allowing the students to get back on task, but it is really hard to do.

I know that overtime these problems will work themselves out.  I am working hard to find resources online to help me feel more comfortable teaching in a Montessori environment.   

The Purpose of the Five Great Lessons Explained: March 10-16

For my 20% project I was looking for some great resources for teaching the 5 Great lessons.  This website gave a great background, but does not give any of the experiements that are suppose to go along with each great lesson. Since my 20% project was to learn how to use Montessori materials, that I do not know.  I thought I would look for some resources and videos to help teach the 5 great lessons.  However, I am finding that so much of the Montessori lessons are taught orally and handed down from a Master teacher to the teacher trainee.  There is a lack of  videos for the Great lessons.  

 

NAMC Montessori Teacher Training Blog: Montessori Elementary Curriculum: The Purpose of the Five Great Lessons Explained

Then I stumbled upon this great blog by another Montessori teacher.  She lists all the experiments for each of the great lessons. She has broken it down into followup lessons, language cards,  journal suggestions and even extensions for upper elementary, since the five great lessons are taught each year.  Even though I have not heard the first great lesson and I am expected to teach the second great lesson after spring break.  Hopefully, with this new resource I have a starting point on how to teach the second great lesson.  Wish me luck! 

http://missbarbara.net/timelineoflife.html

28 Common Core State Standards: A Montessori Perspective: March 3-March 9

Very interesting to hear one person's perspective about common core standards and Montessori perspective.  Especially since many Montessori schools are charter schools and will still need to follow Common Core.  Currently at my Montessori charter school we have been told that the Montessori materials address all the common core standards, but beyond that we have not had any staff development on teaching Common Core unlike many public school teachers have.  Yet our school site is a test site for the new state standardized test .  My third grade students will be taking the new test on a computer in May.  This worries me especially since we are very limited on technology in our school.  We only have one tablet per classroom.  Our staff is now discussing what we want for technology for next year because our 3rd through 6th graders will have to take the state test on a computer and with little computer skills addressed at school how can we expect them to properly take the test.



Many Montessori-ans believe that computers are not necessary in the classroom.  This is our current debate now.  Do we allow more computer usage in our classrooms, where there is virtually no usage at the current moment?

What is School For? Book Review Section 1-24

What is School For? By Seth Godin Sections 1-24

I begun to read Stop Stealing Dreams: What is School For? For my Learning and Technology class.  This book was recommended to challenge my perspective on schooling.  This book is written as a manifesto. If you would like a free copy do to http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/stopstealingdreamsscreen.pdf 

I would highly recommend to parents, teachers and administrators to read.

So far I am enjoying this reading.  Godin is doing a good job of convincing me of the problems of public education.  Although, I was pretty convinced prior to this reading his examples have helped me solidify my understanding of the real problems we are having with public schools.   Godwin presents questions throughout his manifesto, this helps the reader to explore their own situation and formulate their own opinions.

This book has been sectioned off into sections, written similar to blog posts and a stream of Godin’s thoughts.  This post I will reflect on sections 1-24.  The main message of this book is all summed up in the title, what is school for?  Why was school created? And how it has evolved over time the main point Godin was addressing.  When the common school was created by Mann it’s purpose was to educate children to work in factories, however our economy has changed and longer are these the jobs our children will have, but school has not changed enough to reflect this change in the job market.  Before education was not developed to motivate kids, it was invented to churn out adults who worked well within the system. 

A question raised in Section 4 is “What is school for” and proposes four things. One particularly interesting to me was “the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake” I found this interesting because I currently work at a Montessori charter school and we have many parents that have moved their children to our school from public school because their children didn’t love school and it wasn’t working for various reasons.  However, I found many of my parents saying that their child love coming to school now.  I wonder if this has to do with the Montessori philosophy and following the child and a course that each child has choice.  Very rarely are there whole class lessons and everyone is working on something different.  In a Montessori environment we are encouraging this love of learning and not churning out students to work as obedient factory workers.  More and more Montessori schools are popping up and it may be in response to this standardized public school education.

Which leads me to my next point in section 17 about reinventing school.  I was reflecting on the major points that Godin discusses about how school can be rethought.  This is his list:

1.     Homework during the day, lectures at night

2.     Open book, open note, all the time

3.     Access to any course, anywhere in the world


4.     Precise, focused instruction instead of mass, generalized instruction

5.     The end of multiple-choice exams

6.     Experience instead of test scores as a measure of achievement

7.     The end of compliance as an outcome

8.     Cooperation instead of isolation


9.     Amplification of outlying students, teachers, and ideas.

10. Transformation of the role of the teacher

11. Lifelong learning, earlier work

12. Death of the nearly famous college

I thought about my school and our curriculum and how we are doing many of these items already.  We are not giving homework, we are not test driven, the only test we do a few reading and math assessments and state standardized test, but we are not administering chapter or benchmark tests.  We have focused instruction instead of mass generalized instruction (big time!)  Since we are not test-driven we are more concerned with experience and a love of learning.  Lastly, transforming the role of the teacher, I do not lecture and I am not the source of the information.  I am a guide for my students and assist in helping them find the answer and to seek out learning and information.  Although we follow the Montessori philosophy we are still have to adhere to Common Core and state standardized tests since we are a publically funded.  Because of this we still need to reinvent public school.