This is pretty interesting. My method of teaching my own kids is much more traditional (worksheets, flash cards, tests, textbook reading, writing reports/stories, etc.), at least academically. I have always thought art should be taught more like in this article, where students pursue and research the artistic styles and techniques that they are drawn to (I mean art is such a diverse and vast subject that can be taken in so many directions), but have never thought any other subject to be suited to this kind of exploratory learning, though it makes a lot of sense to me, especially in the internet age in which we live. But if I look at my own life, the subject that I have had the least formal training in and have personally pursued because I was just passionate about it, was art. I really have always found art classes to be constricting and frustrating, and only took three classes after elementary school: once in middle school, once in high school and once in college. Through my own research and experimenting, I have learned far more than I ever did in a traditional classroom setting. All this aside though, I cannot see this method of teaching covering everything a student needs to learn (most kids arent particularly interested in all the subjects they *need* to know about, like say grammar); but maybe more of this student led learning could be incorporated in our current education systems. Perhaps giving students an amount of time each day (say an hour) to pursue their interests exclusively, to get them in touch with experts in that field, and allowing them to present their findings with each other in a manner of their choosing would be a beneficial experiment to implement....With the results that some of the classrooms in this article have seen, and our own nations dismal academic ranking amongst the developed countries of the world, I dont see how it could hurt.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 13:54:22 +0000
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