education is all about counting sheep, and making more so we can sleep at night

[nny]

Weird cognitive dissonance, today, of the bus smelling oddly like a car. There was something delightful in that, like I could mentally squeeze the space until the lady with all the shopping was giggling as she tried to fit onto the grizzled bus driver's lap, and the couple were squeezed up next to each other and hanging out of the window for a furtive cigarette, and the teen in back was trying desperately to keep up with the disaffection against a smile that was curling the side of his face. My imagination rails against school time, sometimes; I could pretend they were all people I'd want to talk to because I had my headphones on.

Got frustrated by teaching again, today. The key to teaching lower bands of ability is genuinely not to simplify ideas until they bear no relation to reality, okay? I promise you, it's really really not. Give it to them in bite-size chunks, and try to tease the ideas out of them - even sometimes to the point of making the next logical step for them, making it seem like a product of the discussion between themselves. Allow them the higher order thinking, allow them to philosophise, teach them that they are allowed to be critical thinkers; give them the tools, at least, because at least then they can learn to use them.

Please, please don't just tell them that Wikipedia cannot necessarily be trusted but non-fiction books are pretty much always right.

Sorry, sorry. I forgot we were perpetuating the hegemony. I forgot we weren't trying to get them to look for their own truth.

Comments

[innerbrat]

This, sadly, is why I don't think I'd fit into formal education. I can't be having with perpetuating the hegemony.

And I will never ever get tired of asking "so, what do you think?"

[villainny.livejournal.com]

See, the thing is, you can fit it in around the curriculum, if you try. It's a fuck of a lot of work, and there're certain things that you do have to teach in a certain way, and there are massive problems with that. I totally totally get that. But I just... when you can make a kid genuinely want to learn, when you can say 'dude, I actually don't know, that's an excellent question. How 'bout we find out?' and they seem genuinely interested in the extra work it'll take to find the answer, you kind of get the hope that maybe you're nudging them towards learning off their own back. Which is what it's all about, y'know?

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Ugh, this bugs me too. And surely it's not a difficult thing to ask of the education system?

[villainny.livejournal.com]

Hey, people are eddikated, right? And they do the jobs we fit them for, right? Why change?

Snarl snarl, growl growl.