posted
The reason I think it might be a good idea for classes to be more inclusive isn't because the more advanced kids should be teaching the kids that are falling behind, but rather because I think a diverse range of skills benefits a learning environment. I think lots of different kids just being there is help enough and it may be harmful to gifted kids to segregate them all the time. I was taking my thoughts from the way special education works in my county.
I just wanted to clarify that because I think I used the wrong words to say what I meant :\. I don't mean kids should teach other kids by individually transfering knowledge. Kids should teach other kids by being brave enough to raise their hand, by taking pride in their work, and behaving in class, for example.
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quote:I just wanted to clarify that because I think I used the wrong words to say what I meant :\. I don't mean kids should teach other kids by individually transfering knowledge. Kids should teach other kids by being brave enough to raise their hand, by taking pride in their work, and behaving in class, for example.
That I totally agree with.
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They are your lists. I don't know your reasoning, so I can't say who is on the various lists. Explain your reasoning.
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this thread has been bothering me, and i haven't been able to figure out why.
thanks Tom, for putting it so clearly for me
quote: Those kids who are uniquely gifted at math, for example, owe it to the world to use their math skills for our betterment.
How, then, do you propose that we identify those kids who are uniquely gifted at teaching? Because I wouldn't want to force those kids who're skilled at math into teaching math to kids, because the skills involved are completely different.
quick learners should not be forced to teach slow learners, unless they enjoy it. as Tom has said, it would have also have driven me crazy to be forced to teach kids my age when i was younger. i spent a whole school year in the same class as my older brother in a combined 5th/6th grade gifted class. this wasn't because i or my peers in class were on the same level as my brother and his peers, but because the teacher knew how to teach us, rather than make us teach our peers that were behind.
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posted
*nods at ladyday* Excellant point about special education, and the lessons kids of all skill levels can learn from one another.
I'm not sure how they do special education in our new school system yet, but in our old one it was inclusive. Boy Opera had a child with Down's in one of his classes. I was so proud one year when he was picking out valentines for his classmates and saved the largest for that boy. Even though they didn't interact a ton (the other boy had an aide and often went to another classroom to work with her) I think being around someone with Down's really taught Boy Opera a lesson of "person" value - truly seeing someone for who they are.
posted
I also had a negative reaction to Annie's post, though nothing like what Celia is sort of restraining herself from saying. But there is a lot of pain in the post as well. The pathological laziness isn't going to fix itself.
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Yeah, it's usually just the people involved that enjoy these things. And Nathan, but Nathan is a special case .
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I'm sorry I came off as pretentious. I promise, the last thing I intended to do was couch some blatant showing-off in a story about something else. If I wanted to flaunt my good grades and have someone tell me how special I was, I promise I wouldn't be doing it here. Nothing about my post was backhanded or gloating.
I thought I was in an appropriate environment of intelligent people among whom I could discuss the difficulties of gifted education without getting the typical whining about it not being fair to use words like "gifted."
What I wanted to discuss was the fact that my entire education was centered around my grade point average. No one pushed me to learn or to improve myself - they simply gave me a big number and sent me on my way.
I think Kama's original bafflement about the American system characterizes our problem perfectly. Why all the problems with gifted education? Maybe it's because our entire system is based around big and little numbers. When we get high test scores and high grades, we're smart. When the numbers are littler than everyone else's, we're failing. There's no absolute - there's no actual push to have to comprehend a certain amount of information. Kids aren't learning how to learn, they're learning how to play the system. Kids who are naturally good at the system, who know how to take tests and write formulaic answers, do well.
What my post was trying to illustrate is that you can do really well by the system's standards and never learn a damn thing. I don't think that's pretentious at all.
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posted
It's not as simple as "not wanting to learn." You have to isolate a cause and go from there. Reasons for not wanting to learn can be as simple as not having a decent breakfast, or as complicated as failure to relate to the specific method of teaching. How many kids out there (who do not have significant behavioral problems, or something that needs to be treated another way) honestly do not want to learn, when a subject is presented in a way that is interesting to them?
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posted
and i was just trying to express my displeasure for the wording of your response without having to make a big to do.
i'm sorry katie wouldn't let me do that. in the future i'll probably just start off being witchy since it's so expected of me that doing otherwise automatically brings me criticism.
is this how the learning process works?
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(((Annie))) Did you read the first several pages of the thread? Like where mack had a lot the same reaction to Hobbes' sharing as Celia did to yours?
And of course you can't ever share something on Hatrack without expecting a couple of people to be contrary. But I would like to hear more about your laziness concerns, since I have similar problems.
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Ladyday: Personally, I think it has a lot to do with the basic concepts Rousseau discussed three hundred years ago in Émile. Children need to learn as part of their life experience. Everything about our education is artificial. "Why do I have to learn Algebra." "To pass the test." "Why do I have to pass the test?" "To get into college and take more tests."
Nowhere does institutional education (except in the occasionally good teacher) overlap with a child's real life. When you begin by teaching mathematical and linguistic concepts in natural situations, the utility of education is established and the child wants to learn as a search for the reality of his natural environment.
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What I'm wondering is...why didn't Annie -want- to achieve as much as she could? Why didn't you want to, not just write papers, but write papers that would get published somewhere? What roadblocks are there to achieving that simple attitude of always trying your best and how can education help remove them?
I just struggle with the idea of grades being intended as a cap on ambition; there is always more to learn and do.
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celia - Stop being so snarky. If you really thought Annie's post was inappropriate or offensive, call her on it in a tactful way. Being snarky only makes you look like you're lashing out about something that has nothing to do with Annie.
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You start out stating a vexation, and don't really get back to that, so that kind of tinted the whole post as a rant against what didn't sound like too bad of an experience. Except you mention something tragic happened to one of your schoolmates, but it seems you accepted that as a random event.
Anyway, I don't want to re-post a bunch of quotes and dissect your story. I'm just trying to express why I felt it was not sympathetic, and why it seemed to exist in a vaccuum from the rest of the thread. Granted, you did say you were not trying to contribute to the general line of reasoning.
posted
I definately agree that some children need a concrete reason to learn, and they aren't getting those reasons in our educational system. My son is never impressed by the fact that he needs to take a test. What's helped with him is to give "real-world" reasons why he needs to know how to multiply, etc. We also learned never to stress the fact that he should do well in school so that he can get into a good college and get a job that makes a lot of money. What works for him is to point out opportunities - "You want to work hard in school so that after college you can choose to do what interests you most."
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Trisha, I read the first page and the last page of the thread and missed a lot of vital stuff, as I always seem to.
My current thought is that this laziness phenomenon is related to the huge numbers of ADD we're seeing. I'm not going to say that it's not a valid psychological problem, but I am going to say that even valid psychological problems can have cutural causes. I think the way we learn in today's system compartmentalizes our attention. I read journals of 19th century authors and am amazed by the depth of their discipline and thought processes. I think that while their sort of inegalitarian education certainly left a lot to be desired, there was a sense of discipline and hard work in even basic education that we've totally lost.
I did a paper once on the legacy of Rousseau's theories in contemporary thought, and traced development of Montessori up to modern educational practice. One of the best books I encountered in that study was John Gotti's Dumbing Us Down. The title makes it sound like a lot of contemporary anti-government bluster, but his thoughts are really very insightful.
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posted
I'm not sure why, but I felt very strongly that I was only "allowed" to learn what they taught. I remember wishing that I could learn a musical instrument or a martial art or something, but feeling somehow that it was "not for me." I think I need to explore myself on this one.
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quote:You start out stating a vexation, and don't really get back to that, so that kind of tinted the whole post as a rant against what didn't sound like too bad of an experience. Except you mention something tragic happened to one of your schoolmates, but it seems you accepted that as a random event.
You're right, and I used my little disclaimer on the front to try to cover up for the fact that I was just rambling and hadn't thought through and framed my argument very well.
The problem with the "tragic event," which was one of my 6th grade classmates becoming one of the killers at Columbine, is one I've struggled with for awhile. I don't know how to relate it to anything yet, so at times I dismiss it in an offhand way. I'm pretty convinced, though, that it's anything but random.
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I notice that attitude (when are we ever going to use this in the real world) more in boys than in girls. Not in this thread, just in general. I wonder why that is.
Anyway, I always thought people who made that argument had a lack of ambition, but now that I think about it...learning things, accomplishing things, even if they were irrelevant...it felt good, it was like an addiction to me. And I'm willing to bet -lots- of people just aren't wired that way.
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posted
I have only recently learned that I can read about and do anything that interests me. I remember thinking that history was so boring and terrible, and that I was so bad at it. Why?
I think it may be because I was told I was a "math and science person" when I was young. I've found out since then that I'm not a math and science person, but rather a learning person. I can pretty much pick something up quickly, no matter what it is. I only thought history was out of reach, so I didn't do as well.
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Annie, that's why when I've "bookended" a thread I always say so in my post I knew there had to be an explanation.
I don't think I have classic ADD. I resist that determination for some reason. I do go off on rabbit trails and not finish things, but I don't work better with music going or move around a lot. I guess my husband has such strong ADD and his mother also that I don't feel like I really could be by comparison. And it seems to be a fad like Harry Potter.
I am so frustrated with my laziness. I wish I knew what caused it so I could get it fixed, but then maybe I think it's just a moral weakness.
P.S. Dang this thread is whizzing right now. I'm sorry to hear about your connection to Columbine. I visit taught a lady who was having a little marriage trouble and then her husband killed the two chldren and himself. It was in the local news a bit. He was actually the second of three suicides in our ward the fall after 09/11.
I haven't read them all. In fact maybe two on the list.
The one actually called "Summerhill" is a fascinating read and really is the nucleus of his ideas. My mother actually suggested reading it.
I had to do a term research paper for my English 101 class at the community college. I'd never had to do one before since I *didn't* go to a traditional high school. (I've have done a grand total of 2 since on non-technical subjects in my entire college career. A's on all three, and one good enough to be published if I'd been "anything but an engineer") I did it on homeschooling because it was a subject I was already knowledgable about and therefore easier for a first-timer.
However, I had to do a lot of reading, for sources and it made me realize a lot of my mothers inital reasons for homeschooling were founded in fairly solid educational research, especially concerning gifted children, even if it wasn't accepted "mainstream" theory.
Sadly these reasons have been mostly swept under the rug except as parotted defenses to quickly spiel off, and the vast majority of the fundamentalist Christians who are now homeschooling their kids have never read the secular authors that did some of the most ground breaking research.
posted
I had forgotten you were homeschooled, AJ. I agree - many of the homeschool families I know did it with amazing research foundations and produced probably the smartest kids I've ever met, but too many people do it for entirely the wrong reasons. If you as a parent don't know how to learn, you're not going to be able to teach your children.
Trisha, I think I'm you in that respect. I'm interested in so many different things, but don't get anything done unless I'm compelled to. (the doctrinal principles of that one are nudging me in the ribs right now) NaNo, for instance, was a fabulous way to make me write. All I need is a deadline and I do just fine. It's the motivation, though... the darn motivation...
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quote:It's not as simple as "not wanting to learn." You have to isolate a cause and go from there. Reasons for not wanting to learn can be as simple as not having a decent breakfast, or as complicated as failure to relate to the specific method of teaching. How many kids out there (who do not have significant behavioral problems, or something that needs to be treated another way) honestly do not want to learn, when a subject is presented in a way that is interesting to them?
posted
The thing is, Belle, I'm trying to square this
quote:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ladyday: I just wanted to clarify that because I think I used the wrong words to say what I meant :\. I don't mean kids should teach other kids by individually transfering knowledge. Kids should teach other kids by being brave enough to raise their hand, by taking pride in their work, and behaving in class, for example. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Belle:That I totally agree with.
with this
quote: In school, I want my children to learn. Not become the kid who the teacher foists all her difficult problem kids on. My children, both of the school age ones, are constantly put in this position. Emily has to sit at a table with three kids who are all trouble makers, they talk in class, they disrupt, and they cause the teacher problems. Why put Emily with them? Because she's quiet, obedient, and doesn't need as much attention from the teacher, she grasps concepts well. The teacher wants my daughter to be a calming influence on the boys.
posted
Irami, one quote is Belle's, and the other is Ladyday's. They aren't the same person.
Oh wait you were talking about her agreement, my bad.
Either way you are creating a dichotomy where none exists. Teaching by the example of raising one's hand and asking questions, isn't "peer group" teaching at all. It's forcing the teacher to answer the questions you have, which is exactly the behavior that gets you persecuted by the other kids.
posted
I'm going to be lazy by leaping into this without having read the entire thread and by essentially pasting in stuff I wrote somewhere else on the same topic: I can tell you that, despite a supposed theoretical (and legal!) impetus toward integrated, homogeneous classrooms, legal stipulations that special education students and GT students receive "services" (i.e., special treatment, attention, methodology, etc.) often results in districts' setting up Pre-AP classes (heh) in which (though these are theoretically open to all) the GT students are funneled and separated from the rest. A side-effect of this is that all the classes tend to become stratified, and problem students and those with undiagnosed needs end up in separate (if unlabeled) classes.
The model at the charter school where I'm the English chair is that all students, regardless of ability (including special ed, whoa) are in the same advanced classes (IB model). Auxiliary services are then provided to spec. ed. students. GT students, well, they are challenged in class, just like everyone else. And they tend to bring more mediocre students up, because the so-so kids get caught up in the discussions the GT kids initiate. It's a much better system. In fact, last year, by pushing my special ed students to read incredibly tough material (with significant support, of course), I got them to advance two grade levels in reading. All students need to be challenged, bottom line, no matter the extent of their "giftedness."
Plus, we have small classes (18-22), really focused and prepared teachers, and parents who (by defintion) are more interested in their children's getting a better education that those of most kids.
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posted
Here's a question - is it ok for a child *not* to want to learn? Does not wanting to learn something always imply laziness or lack of curiosity?
Heck, we can throw adults in too, for that matter. I have to confess that I have no real idea how my lightbulbs light up or how my cell phone works. Sure, I learned about electricity in school, but to be honest, I could give a flip. But on things I'm passionate about, such as literature, I have a never-ending curiosity to explore.
So when children do this, is it simply differentiating in interests, or is it laziness? Or am I just lazy?
posted
I can't think of a child who isn't interested in learning "something" even if it's just wrestling moves to take an older brother down.
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posted
Space Opera read Summerhill, you'll love it.
One of his biggest contentions is that the educational systems as they are/were set up inherently destroy children's natural curiousity about the world around them, and that if left to one's own devices one will get bored enough eventually and start learning because one is bored with everything else.
Note: He isn't saying that there aren't individual excellent teachers that do invigorate natural curiosity but that the system is self-defeating in many ways.
posted
Yes, and I think that's based on interests. So is this ok?
Maybe I'm not as clear as I thought I was...
Is there ever a situation in school where it's ok for the child not to want to learn? Is it ok for them to learn reluctantly - or does the fact that they do learn reluctantly make them lazy? I'm thinking of some of the things my son dislikes - like learning math facts. He hates memorizing things (as do I) like that. But he will happily memorize the powers of a certain Pokemon, for example.
I think reluctant learners in a lot of cases aren't "lazy." Sometimes I think it's a matter of how the material is presented, and sometimes it's a matter of them just not caring for that particular subject. Boy Opera was an incredibly reluctant reader starting out. Though he loved being read to, he had no desire to learn how to read himself. Now he reads a great deal, and very well, but he hated reading till he was skilled enough to read the good stuff - not the "Dan sees the dog" books that they begin with at school.
But is it ever ok for a child not to want to learn something, or should there always be a reason behind it?
space opera
edit: Will do, AJ. Luckily Boy Opera had a wonderful first grade teacher - she bought special easy to read sciency-type books that were on his level in order to encourage him.
[ January 18, 2005, 03:54 PM: Message edited by: Space Opera ]
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quote:if left to one's own devices one will get bored enough eventually and start learning because one is bored with everything else
But will they learn the important things to getting along in society, such as reading, math, etc.? I can't tell if he's saying they can learn on their own, or if left to their own devices they'll be willing to learn from a teacher.