“They never get asked to create anything,”

American kids should be building rockets and robots, not taking standardized tests. Learn by testing or learn by making? (Thanks to Post Oak parent Lisa Eddleman for sending this article to me.)

All the City's a Classroom

This high school class promises experiential and expeditionary learning in NYC. It certainly gets students out of the restrictive cells and bells structure of conventional schooling. And the students say they like talking more than listening to lectures, and completing projects more than writing papers, but is touring the same as real engagement? Is learning by looking the same as learning by doing?

soulcraft

An article sent to me by my son, Jacob: "Shop class as soulcraft." Work of the head vs work of the hands? A false dichotomy. Here's a question from the concluding paragraph: "What is it that we really want for a young person when we give them vocational advice? The only creditable answer, it seems to me, is one that avoids utopianism while keeping an eye on the human good: work that engages the human capacities as fully as possible." The human capacities unite the work of the hand and the work of the head. And since the title includes the term "soulcraft," clearly the author, Matthew Crawford, is thinking of the work of the heart as well.

What if quizzes measured kids’ ability to question, not answer?

Reinventing education. We've been talking about it for a long time. Thanks to Post Oak parent Stephan Kinsella for sending this along to me.

10 Things your commencement speaker won't tell you

By Charles Wheelan, The Wall Street Journal “I became sick of commencement speeches at about your age. My first job out of college was writing speeches for the governor of Maine. Every spring, I would offer extraordinary tidbits of wisdom to 22-year-olds—which was quite a feat given that I was 23 at the time. In the decades since, I've spent most of my career teaching economics and public policy. In particular, I've studied happiness and well-being, about which we now know a great deal. And I've found that the saccharine and over-optimistic words of the typical commencement address hold few of the lessons young people really need to hear about what lies ahead. Here, then, is what I wish someone had told the Class of 1988…” Read the full story here.

another big project

a note from Post Oak parent Audra French (her daughter Aurora is 6 years old and ready for elementary next year):
"I see Aurora developing in very "Montessori" ways. (She wrote a chapter book after/during dinner last week. She continued to reread and revise her sentences throughout the writing process, as well as brainstorm on topics and which illustrations to include. The next day, Aurora created another big project for herself, but it's escaping me right now. And she is very upset that our homeowner's association won't allow her to have an actual retail store in our home to sell her creations.) She's a lot of fun, and I think Montessori is enriching our family life.

despite their schooling--not because of it

How to develop innovators. That's the tag line of Tony Wagner's recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

Samples:
"Learning in most conventional education settings is a passive experience: The students listen. But at the most innovative schools, classes are "hands-on," and students are creators, not mere consumers."

"In most high-school and college classes, failure is penalized. But without trial and error, there is no innovation."

"In conventional schools, students learn so that they can get good grades. My most important research finding is that young innovators are intrinsically motivated. The culture of learning in programs that excel at educating for innovation emphasize what I call the three P's—play, passion and purpose. The play is discovery-based learning that leads young people to find and pursue a passion, which evolves, over time, into a deeper sense of purpose."