Milton, I love your
Milton, I love your ideas--you are spot on. Thank you for your insightful article.I would only add one more "edge" to your list. You could call it the "edge of the one room school house" or "no age...
View ArticleSocial justice in education must be the collective consciousness
I’m happy to announce that Exprima Media (http://www.exprimamedia.com) has been working with several large textbook publishers to do just this. While quite reluctant at first, these publishers are now...
View ArticleI agree!
There are real benefits to kids working together across age groups, I've always like the concept of cross-age tutoring, having older students help younger students, as they did in the one-room...
View ArticleGlad to hear
more publishers are moving to digitize content and publish it digitally, clearly the wave of the future and hopefully sooner rather than later.
View ArticleNow your talking!
Imagine the money schools will save on textbooks which quickly become outdated and worn out. The new digitized format will be a game changer allowing student access to all levels so that they may...
View ArticleFlorida does it right!
Dear Mr. Chen,Thank you for sharing your blog and also for replying to my email. I so thoroughly agree with your last few comments on education taking a back seat to a "Hollywood Nation" obsession....
View ArticleThere was a time not so long
There was a time not so long ago when I was intensively studying the best of every innovative approach in the world to integrate into a charter school design. And we did end up creating a successful,...
View ArticleIt exists. Really it does.
Matthew I agree with you. School by it's very nature is well "schooling". What I think you are describing is "unschooling" or reclaiming your natural ability to learn and to teach yourself. In the...
View ArticleArticle 16
Perhaps segregating children by age in high school has more to do with socialization efforts rather than academic achievement.
View ArticleI work with children in many
I work with children in many different educational settings and see a wide range of socialization skills. The most mature students are the ones who have access to all ranges of ages throughout their...
View ArticleAge discrimination
My own children were ready to begin school before the state would "allow" them to begin. An education should be tailored to fit the student. If a 5 year old is ready for first grade, he/she should be...
View ArticleOne room schoolhouse
I have often thought that children who grew up in a one-room schoolhouse had a richer education and grew to be adults more ready, willing and able to set goals and take on new challenges at any stage...
View ArticleI agree with you Don. My
I agree with you Don. My father grew up in rural Arkansas and attended a one room school house with his eleven siblings. His memories of school were delightful. He recalls every student learning at...
View ArticleA life with a sense of purpose fuels education
Darleen, I think the key is purposefulness, if that is a word. That is, a person's life and education are not two separate things and when there is a sense of purpose in one's life and education, get...
View ArticleArticle 10
Exactly, purposefulness. There is something to the "whole child" education movement. Not separating life from education.Albeit our purposes have changed our need for a purpose has not. No longer...
View ArticleExactly. But I have been
Exactly. But I have been teaching twenty years and I don't see that national dialogue coming any time soon. If anything education is even more politicized than ever before. Everyone's an expert and...
View ArticleArticle 8
[quote]All educational systems, no matter of what stripe, produce most of the same problems that they seek to struggle against, because they work to standardize and contain.[/quote] I believe that it...
View ArticleThe question of leaping
The question of leaping outside of current mental models was the heart of the late Bela H. Banathy's approach to "reform." (see book Systems Design of Education, 1995, and various articles). Actually,...
View ArticleA very rich conversation
Thanks to all of you who've posted on this very rich conversation about how we need to redesign, rather than reform, the current school system. And how many of these ideas return us to a closer sense...
View ArticleMatthew and Milton, Yes, and
Matthew and Milton,Yes, and I would add that perhaps the crucible and the grassroots have grown too big. I would really like to see a school, my school, get back to being a local creation, not a...
View ArticleYou are so right! It is hard
You are so right! It is hard to be an educator and not try to spoon feed all the information you have to your students. The greatest gift we can give our children is the drive and ability to question...
View ArticleArticle 3
Matthew,I am curious. How many students and their parents would take this model and take those first steps outside their comfort zone. You speak of their "emergent needs and interests", but I wonder if...
View ArticleThis discussion takes me back
This discussion takes me back to my "real" teacher training that happened in graduate school. Two books and several people are brought to my mind. The books are "Reclaiming the Classroom" (Goswami...
View ArticleThese are some really great
These are some really great ideas for our future classrooms! They set the standards for the classrooms of the future. Trying new ideas is also a good way to experiment how that would work in one's...
View ArticleThanks so much for writing
Thanks so much for writing about your new book. I would be thrilled to live in a learning society, where education was one of the highest priorities! When I read through the description of the “Edges”...
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