What are references for?

Many years ago, when I was a 7^th grader my math teacher said something that affected my views on learning. He said that the amount of information people collect is growing so fast that he believed his generation was the last generation that had individuals of encyclopedic knowledge. He predicted that people would need to become more narrow specialists in the areas of their choices. He was the teacher who told us that we should not try to remember some general data which is recorded in the reference books and is easily available in the libraries.

Do not memorize, understand and move on - that was my mantra for years. This is why I can watch people playing Jeopardy, but I will never encourage anybody to play it. I will never understand why you would need to remember so much information that can be easily found if needed.

There is another aspect to this thought. More and more discoveries are made on the borders of different fields of knowledge. For example, new methods of treating diseases are found on the border between Biology and Physics. To create a simulation on the computer the programmer must understand the science behind the simulation. So we can’t really become narrow specialists. There is a contradiction :) We do need to be a little educated in more than one area.

I was happy to see old RCTs (tests required for High School Diploma in NYS) gone and exchanged by Regents Exams (New tests) because the new tests require less memorization and more thinking on the spot. In Math instead of calculations students have to solve problems. In Science instead of checking the tricky vocabulary words the students are asked how they would think in different situations, same in History, and even in English they have to write what they think about what they've read.

So I have positive view on the changes in education. I am also happy to see how many talented and devoted people work in this field, how many new ideas are there. Plus we have computers, the tool of the future, in the hands of our students.

Another view on civilizations

Recently I had an argument about culture and civility, and what a civilized person would or would not do. I don’t remember exactly what I was saying and what the opposite opinion was, but during this argument one young man said that to improve schools we have to start beating children with sticks to take care of the discipline problems. I know that there are too many people who would agree with him and this is why I am writing here: to answer to all those people. How do you define civilization? Do cars make us more civil? Or maybe television sets, telephones and computers make us civilized society? Maybe our tanks and bombs make us more civil? What do you think? Does technology make a society civilized? I think that there are no gizmos in the world that can make a barbarian into a civilized man. Every person who believes in “an eye for an eye” is still a barbarian in my opinion. Every bully on a school yard is a barbarian. Every father and mother who hit their children to discipline them are barbarians. Every leader who is trying to solve a conflict using force is a barbarian. What really makes our society civilized is how we treat small and weak members or smaller and weaker countries. So I have to research this topic some more, but so far on Earth we do not have a civilized society IMHO. Sorry :( All people, who think that since their parents used to beat them up and they came out well often think it’s OK to beat up their own children to get the same results, continue the cycle of violence and live their barbaric lives.

School Years

I was thinking recently about the baggage we carry out of our school experiences. It’s usually a mixed experience. There are some good things and there are always some bad things to remember. For me the good things started to happen when I entered the 5th grade. In the Soviet Union it was moving from one teacher for all subjects to a whole bunch of teachers different for each subject even though we physically stayed in the same building. In the United States the movement from “elementary school” to a “middle school” is also accompanied with the physical movement to another building. So using the American terminology my “good” school years started in my middle school and continued through the rest of the school years up until the senior year when everything fell apart and left me extremely disappointed and unsatisfied. So I never went back, never visited the building, never met my teachers. I still don’t have any will for that. I did free myself of this baggage by the age of 35 or 40 :) but until then my school years experience affected the way I dealt with people a lot. I do know people who believe that the school years were the best time in their lives, I also know people who forgot those years like they never happened. I want us to compare our experiences, discuss what happened then and how it shaped our personalities. Maybe, if we open this jar of worms our kids will have it easier.

Introduction of a PROFESSIONAL

I want to introduce to all the teachers out there Lisa Nielsen. Here is the site where Lisa shares her thoughts and ideas about using technology for education.Lisa created for us to talk and ask questions on “how can we use technology in our classes today.” Thank you, Lisa for all the work you do. So many kids will have more interesting and involving classes, so many students will become active learners, so many teachers will start using technology for their everyday indtructions, all thanks to you :)

We need change too

Have you noticed lately everyone is talking about “need for change”? They need change in the economic regulations. They need change in the incarceration system. They need change in the automobile building and energy production. They need change in building the houses and heating them. I shouldn’t really say “THEY” I have to say WE! We need all these changes. We also need one more change and it is the change in the education. I am not talking about some kind of breaking the old and building something new. I am talking about evolution not revolution There are many new ideas growing within the “old” systems. You can see these processes everywhere. Green approaches in building, constructions, garbage, energy sources etc. are obvious. There are new ideas for the stock market, international relationships, collecting information, learning, bringing up the children, and, of course, the school. New ideas in school are completely revolutionary. In the old school the teacher knew everything. The process of learning was a process of passing the teacher’s knowledge to the students’ memory. That worked for centuries. That worked even 20 years ago. Suddenly it changed. My students do not want my knowledge any longer, they want their own. I think that because of the change in the needs of the students we started to search for new ways to teach. In today’s school I don’t always know all the information and very often I learn new things while reading my students’ projects. That creates fun for both sides. This is why being a teacher now is so interesting. Everybody creates new methods and strategies. Everybody brings success stories to the meetings. Everybody tries new things every day. We make new assignments to keep students interested. We use new tools to keep them on task. We pay attention to their moods, their family relationships, their talents and abilities. We are trained to recognize their differences and adjust the assignments to their individual levels and tastes. I don’t just pass my knowledge onto them any longer, I help them find what knowledge will fit their needs.

What do we expect from each other?

I am a teacher. I have amazing wonderful students, each is talented and each is trying to do something good. Something good is not always obvious to others. When you know the motivation behind some misbehavior you can give some good constructive advice for the parents to try. Unfortunately, teacher’s advice is not always taken in a positive way. I remember the first time I was sitting and talking to a parent of one of my first students. The girl was very nice and shy. She was afraid to make mistakes so instead of trying to solve math problems she used to say “I am stupid, I can’t do that”. She didn’t do complex multiple-step problems because of that attitude, but I saw that she could solve simple one-step problems just fine. I told the mother all of that. I suspected that the idea that the girl could not solve those problems was planted into her sub-consciousness at earlier age, maybe in an elementary school. I told the mother that she had to start telling her daughter how smart and creative she was to encourage and support her in her growth. This woman got scared. She didn’t get used to talk to a teacher about her daughter. All she expected from me was that the girl was good or bad. Either of those comments she could take. She was not ready to hear an advice on how to help her daughter. Can we change our expectations?

can we learn how to be good parents from books?

I am a mother, I don’t want anybody to tell me how to raise my children. However, I did read everything there about pregnancy and labor. I did want to educate myself to be a better mother to my newborn. Just reading was not enough; my mother helped me a lot with hands on and many other advices. My mother learned how to take care of newborns from books, she didn’t have her mother to help her, Dr. Spoke was her advisor :) and she was so sorry later that she obeyed him religiously. I learned that even when you read a book or an article and agree with the content life will always correct and improve your knowledge. Can you learn to be a parent from books? The problem is that the older my children got the fewer books I read. I was lucky compare to others, my job required learning about child development and I have dealt with kids every day of my adult life. I applied what I learned in my classes and at home. When I think back I feel awe, what would happen to my kids if I didn’t learn from books and from talking to my students.

Can we talk?

The most powerful emotion that we ever experience is, probably, love to our children. I think majority will agree with me. Because this is such a strong emotion it is so hard to talk about anything related to it. Every time somebody talks about our children we feel “attacked”. Even from teachers who spend so much time with the kids and know them pretty well we want to hear only the good things and we dread any kind of other than praise input because we take it as criticism and nobody likes to be criticized for the way they bring up their children. We all are like this. I want my children be “the best” I will criticize them as much as I like, but nobody can criticize them with me. You know what? I agree with that. So I for years I have not criticized other people children. They all are wonderful. Sometimes much better than their own parent know ;) How can we learn to talk about our children constructively?