When Less is More: The Case For Teaching Less Math in Schools

Tweet

This is a post by Peter Gray who has a blog on Psychology Today in Freedom To Learn. You can read the original article here.

A teacher in Manchester, NH decided to accept a challenge by the superintendent of schools in Ithaca, NY, to drop something from the elementary curriculum, and he chose to drop all arithmetic.

The teacher, L.P. Benezet, felt that time spent on arithmetic in the early

grades was wasted effort, or worse. In fact, he wrote: "For some years I had noted that the effect of the early introduction of arithmetic had been to dull and almost chloroform the child's reasoning facilities." All that drill, he claimed, had divorced the whole realm of numbers and arithmetic, in the children's minds, from common sense, with the result that they could do the calculations as taught to them, but didn't understand what they were doing and couldn't apply the calculations to real life problems.

Find out how his experiment panned out.

In 1929, the superintendent of schools in Ithaca, New York, sent out a challenge to his colleagues in other cities. "What," he asked, "can we drop from the elementary school curriculum?" He complained that over the years new subjects were continuously being added and nothing was being subtracted, with the result that the school day was packed with too many subjects and there was little time to reflect seriously on anything. This was back in the days when people believed that children shouldn't have to spend all of their time at school work--that they needed some time to play, to do chores at home, and to be with their families--so there was reason back then to believe that whenever something new is added to the curriculum something else should be dropped.

How Does School Wound?

Tweet

This is an interview with Dr. Kirsten Olson, author of Wounded by School, written by Peter Gray discussing the 7 ways that school wounds a person. Visit Kirsten Olson at her website. You can visit Peter Gray's blog at Psychology Today called Freedom To Learn and read the original article here.

Let me introduce you to Dr. Kirsten Olson. She is an educational researcher, activist, consultant, and writer deeply concerned about children, learning, and the conditions of our schools. She is, among other things, president of the board of directors of IDEA (the Institute for Democratic Education in America). I met her for the first time, for lunch and conversation, a couple of weeks ago, and then I eagerly read her latest book, Wounded by School: Recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing up to Old School Culture. If you have ever gone to school, or have a child in school, or might someday have a child in school, or care about children in school, I recommend her book to you. 

  

Wounded by School is the outcome of research that Olson began when she was an education doctoral candidate at Harvard. As one who loves learning and has always had high esteem for education, Olson intended to conduct research into the delights and enlightenment experienced in the course of schooling. But when she began interviewing people to learn about such positive effects, she found that they talked instead about the pain of school.

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Tweet

Sir Ken Robinson is author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, and a leading expert on innovation and human resources. In this talk, he makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.

Things School Taught Me

Tweet

By Lisa Bentley, author of children's homeschool book series Wright on Time. You can read this original article at her website Do Life Right.

In no particular order, with my additional sarcastic comments after each semi-colon:

Lisa and her family

• Procrastination is good, preferred even; Putting off doing homework and projects until the last minute is well worth it. Work done under pressure takes less time and is usually graded better. Nevermind the stress of it all, stomach aches are good…
• Don’t share information with anyone under any circumstances; It’s called cheating in school, collaboration in real life.
• Allow those bigger and stronger to have all my possessions; Those with strength should always win.
• Blend in, don’t get noticed, never make waves, don’t show your true personality under any circumstances; You didn’t want to be the kid that got noticed, or you’d get made fun of. If you stand out, you’ve opened yourself up for ridicule. This is known by every kid that has ever gotten beat up for wearing something “weird”. You could never possibly make the other kids happy with you, so you might as well help others become the target rather than yourself.
• Never tell your whole, honest truth, especially to your elders; Telling the full truth was cause for the adults and other kids to hate you with their whole being. Either you became a “smart ass know-it-all” or “the freak” by doing this. Nevermind the fact that you were

Who Wouldn't Be School Phobic?

Tweet

By Sarah Fitz-Claridge. You can read the original article at her website.

School phobia’ is a dreadful label for some children's perfectly understandable response to being compelled to go to school against their will. They are not phobic, any more than a conscientious objector is a coward; they are refusing – and in most cases very nobly.

Over the years, I have spoken to many worried parents of school-refusing children. The outrages these children have been subjected to in the name of ‘education’ disgust me. They have been saddled with a pseudo-medical label that has deliberate connotations of ‘mental illness’ – with all the stigma and the implied (and not-so-implied) menace that goes with that.

Their perfectly reasonable dissent, and their desperately courageous resistance to being hurt and harmed has been cynically redefined as ‘overdependence,’ ‘psychological instability,’ and ‘immaturity.’ They have been psychologically tortured under the guise of psychiatric or psychological ‘treatment’ for a non-existent ailment.

Their parents – also demeaned by labels such as ‘overprotective’ – have been threatened with court action unless they physically force their terrified, traumatized children into school every day. Many such parents who have sought my advice have themselves been in a terrible state of stress and trauma. Why don't they just comply? Because they know that forcing their child to go so school is immoral, psychologically harmful, and inimical to their child's education. Or do they know that? Parents often do not seem to know it consciously. Or if they do, they also ‘know’ the contradictory idea that it is right and important for children to be schooled, because the law, the psychiatric, psychological, and educational professions all say so.

They may be nice people in many respects, but as a result of their own parents' coercion, they are simply unable to see how damaging and wrong it is to force a child to go to school.

Statistics on Bullying in Schools

Tweet

The numbers continue to rise each month. When you force a mass of same aged people together in a small building 5 days a week, 6 hours a day, unfortunately bullying is an inevitable side effect to this unnatural setting.

- It is estimated that 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by other students. Source: National Education Association.

- American schools harbor approximately 2.1 million bullies and 2.7 million of their victims. Dan Olweus, National School Safety Center.

- 1 in 7 Students in Grades K-12 is either a bully or a victim of bullying.

- 15% of all school absenteeism is directly related to fears of being bullied at school.

- 23 per cent of elementary students reported being bullied one to three times in the last month bullying statistics say.

- Recent bullying statistics admit that half of all bullying incidents go unreported.

- In a recent study, 77% of the students said they had been bullied. And 14% of those who were bullied said they experienced severe (bad) reactions to the abuse.

When An Adult Took Standardized Tests Forced on Kids

Tweet

This is what happened when an affluent individual on the school board of one of the largest school system in America with a bachelor of science, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate took his state's standardized test for 10th graders, and decided to share the results . Written by Marion Brady.

A longtime friend on the school board of one of the largest school systems in America did something that few public servants are willing to do. He took versions of his state’s high-stakes standardized math and reading tests for 10th graders, and said he’d make his scores public.

By any reasonable measure, my friend is a success. His now-grown kids are well-educated. He has a big house in a good part of town. Paid-for condo in the Caribbean. Influential friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. Enough time of his own to give serious attention to his school board responsibilities. The margins of his electoral wins and his good relationships with administrators and teachers testify to his openness to dialogue and willingness to listen.

Nature's Powerful Tutors; The Educative Functions of Free Play

Tweet

Another fabulous writing by Peter Gray, a professor of psychology at Boston College. He discusses the role of free play in a child's education, and states that with adequate settings for free play 'we would not need coercive schooling'. You can read his blog at Psychology Today called Freedom to Learn, and read this original article here.

Everywhere, children play and explore when they have the opportunity, and they do so in certain universal ways. My thesis is that the drives to play and to explore came about in evolution to serve the function of education. Moreover—and this is the radical part of the thesis—I’m going to argue that these drives are so powerful, and so well designed for their purposes, that they can provide the foundation for education, even in our complex culture today. If we would provide settings that optimize children’s opportunities for play and exploration, we would not need coercive schooling.

I will describe here three sets of observations that help convince me of the educative power of children’s natural play and exploration.

Youtuber Koolvedge: Thoughts About School

Tweet

With a large following and known as Koolvedge on Youtube, this very smart and progressive visionary presents his intelligent thoughts about the optimal classroom: nature. Check out his channel here.

Reading an excerpt from Grace Llywellyn's The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education.