Teach them how to fishEducation

The Case for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:01:48 +0000

In the article, “Narrowing the Language Gap: The Case for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction,” Kevin Feldman and Kate Kinsella argue passionately about the importance of mindful vocabulary knowledge building in our school aged children(and especially the long term English learners). According to the authors, even though many experts and researchers have been showing us that strong vocabulary skills are very important for successful academic careers, and even though this particular information has been available to us educators for many decades, there have not been strong enough efforts in building quality lexiconic skills in our students.

I am curious as to why, when there are studies that show the need for a focus on establishment of a strong lexicon base, the educators have not jumped on it. I would love to know what has been the cause of this disconnect and how we can improve this practice or the lack there of.

I agree with the authors that vocabulary building should not rely solely on impromptu, spontaneous learning opportunities. I also agree that structured planning must go into providing a quality English learning experience. I have personally found, both as a teacher and as a student in a learning mode, that a guided learning of new vocabulary words is immensely helpful and an enjoyable way to learn new words.

The more in depth the learning is for the learner and the more layered the experiences are that take place, the better the overall retention of the information would take place. It makes logical sense to me that wide reading of various genres and becoming self-aware of one’s own learning methods can be a powerful asset to the learner.

The point is to equip our children so that they will be ready to succeed in the higher learning environments. Doing this will help them succeed in school and offer them a leg up, or at the least allow them an even playing field with others as they move ahead in higher learning environments and afterwards, in the career fields of their choice.

Here is one of the many great talks by Kate Kinsella :

Click here to view the embedded video.

No child left behind, and other assessment tools…

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:23:35 +0000

Testings for various purposes have their place in education. The NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act was implemented to help schools to perform better, and to produce more learned and capable students. I can appreciate that stated goal, but the outcome of this act does not help teachers or schools in general to perform better, not from my own observations, and not from what many public school teachers and administrators have said to me. All signs point to the fact that this act is actually harming our students.

Schools appear to have been forced into a position of becoming less focused on authentically educating their students and become focused on, instead, getting them ready for the standardized exams. Schools do this by creating cramming sessions, taking time away from the students’ real education so that they can score better, so that the schools do not lose funding, which would cause them to cut classes, lay off teachers, etc. NCLB was supposed to cause the schools to become better educational institutions that could offer a better quality education to the young, instead, it placed the focus of the educational institutions on the wrong goal.

We’ve had enough time to see that NCLB not only does not work, but is also making our education worse, we really ought to try our effort at something else, better yet, this time we should really think through in a more organic and intelligent manner and do something that really will work. The answers are not that hard to figure out!

A smarter program might be one that provides coaching and more intuitive/better quality teaching methods for the teachers to become better educators by working with them on class interactions; teachers can be taught constructive ways to help difficult students and healthy ways to encourage a love for learning.

Another intelligent thing to do would be to find a way to pay our teachers wages that they deserve. Teachers are some of the most important people since they help to grow and nurture the minds and hearts of our future generation, our future world. As we treat our teachers as if they are less important, their work can flounder, which in turn causes all of the students under them to flounder in school, and usually in life. Those are just a few ideas that could be powerfully helpful and should produce real positive results!

Instead of punishing schools for not producing students who can pass standardized tests by taking away funding from schools, which causes those schools to become worse educational institutions, why not copy programs that are working, programs such as Jeffery Canada’s and others throughout the country?

In defense of youth…

admin — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 00:57:58 +0000

There is a wise and peaceful person I want to be, but sometimes I do feel violence rising in my blood. My blood sometimes does reach that boiling point where I can feel like I could punch someone. When I see a big person picking on someone too small to fight back, like a child, whether verbally or physically, I am occasionally guilty of wanting a good fight with them. I am a small woman, but still bigger than the child who is being dumped on.

The other day I was sitting at a fast food place having unhealthy-but-fun-to-eat-burgers with my son, when I heard a father arguing with a boy who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, and wasn’t even a third of the man’s height. I love a good verbal argument, especially when it utilizes and promotes the practicing and development of one’s mental faculties and everyone involved comes out of it a bit more intelligent or with a more complex views on things. A good debate is a fantastic opportunity to have your paradigms shifted in a positive direction. This argument was not a positive argument.

They were arguing about the existence of dollar burgers at another location that apparently did not exist at the location where we were eating. It appeared that the father was resentful at having to spend 15 cents more since at this particular restaurant the cheapest burger was $1.15. The boy kept saying that he didn’t see a dollar menu at the other place, and that’s why he came here. The word “argument” might be too generous a word to apply to this verbal interaction, since the man had most and loudest input, and when the man was done, he concluded this mostly one sided argument with one piece of verbal vomit.

“You are a dumb shit.”

What got to me more was what ended up happening to the boy as a result of my reaction. I was so shocked that I turned my head and looked at the boy. My reaction got the boy to look over at me, which would have been fine if I hadn’t seen him fill up with shame. He was embarrassed because he knew that I heard his dad.
I could tell how he felt and I wished to god that I could say, “no, no, it isn’t you, you should not be feeling embarrassed. You are not a dumb shit and your dad is the jerk; he is the dumb shit for calling his son that. No father or no mother should say such a thing. In fact, no adult should ever say such things to children ever!”

But I couldn’t and I didn’t.
I hated that man for that.

I believe education is the greatest equalizer; I believe education can take a child of poverty and elevate him or her to a financial standing that is far superior to his or her parents, where he or she came from, etc… but before any of that can happen, the child has to be able to have the self-confidence and self-value to study or to feel that his own self is worthwhile enough to invest his or her time in…

If it takes that, what can we expect from a child who has been put down and told that he is a dumb shit? A child like the boy that I saw at the restaurant has most likely been exposed to and been living under such derailment of his self-esteem and his right to self efficacy through out his entire life… what chance does that boy have to do well in school, to do well in life, or to feel sense of self, when he only knows about a world in which the people who are supposed to love and cherish him tell him that he is a “dumb shit”?
There really ought to be some sort of counseling program that parents-to-be are all required to go through before becoming parents, where the parents-to-be get an opportunity to work through their issues and gain helpful parenting skills that do more than warn them of all the pot holes of being parents, but empower them with real knowledge about children, how to parent in positive settings, etc… Parents seem to need to be told that children are naturally good.

When children behave badly, it is the adults around them helping to produce bad behaviors… Parents-to-be ought to be taught that it is never too late to bring about positive attributes from children, and to help them to become the loving and happy adults that we are all meant to become in the first place.

Geoffrey Canada’s ‘Harlem Children’s Zone

admin — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 17:46:15 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Vindication Of The Rights Of Female Identity

admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:35:07 +0000

Motherhood and fatherhood come with weighty responsibility.

For now, I am going to focus on the mother, one half of the important force in a child’s life. Furthermore I want to talk about the mother who gets to be capable and has been allowed to become a good mother.

Well… who is this good mother? What kind of a person is she? What human quality does she possess? How strong is she so that she can help her children become self-confident and emotionally intelligent people?…

Would you say that… this woman should have a good sense of herself, strong capacity to love, and a deep level of intellectual curiosity, etc.?

While no one is perfect, those characteristics that are mentioned above, a good sense of herself, strong capacity to love, and deep level of intellectual curiosity will definitely be helpful attributes to have if she is to become a good parent.

So… how do we bring up women with those above qualities? To answer that question better, we need to go a little backwards and discuss what kind of an environment this future good mother must have had.

To allow a female to grow up to be that emotionally strong and intellectually developed woman, we must provide a supportive environment for her. We must reveal to her or allow her to discover that she is intelligent, strong, and infinitely capable of just about anything that she puts her mind to. She must be allowed to grow to her full strength as a human being! Make sense, right? If you agree, take a mind walk with me just a little bit further. I have something that I would like to discuss with you as we walk…

Let me now flash backwards in my life a week or so to reveal to you why I am writing this piece in the first place.

At the top of the ninth inning of a Giants home opener game, a portly porkish man with a square-ish head, standing, experiencing too much thought in his unhappy little square-ish head with the umpire’s call, began a string of verbal attacks at a Braves hitter, which went something like, “get up, pick up the bat, don’t be a wuss, it didn’t hurt,” and as if that wasn’t enough he pushed out of his mouth a louder, “don’t be a little girl!”

The guy was almost indescribably obnoxious in his mannerism and voice while he said the words, “don’t be a little girl” But those words are not always said by indescribably obnoxious drunken idiot of a man like him; those words are said by many normal men and even by some women, and this is what concerns me much more than some indescribably obnoxious people.

Since this particular moment with this man, the indescribably obnoxious man who had said “don’t be a little girl,” I have been hearing men who are not so obnoxious as that drunken man repeat his words. I have been witnessing normal average Joes saying it.

Just the other day, I heard John Oliver, a comedian that I like very much, who is definitely not a redneck ignoramus, say it. Right after revealing that the British now have a more sophisticated technology that aides commentary discussing the British elections, to a very impressed looking Jon Stewart (representing the USA), John Oliver said, “yeah, little girl,” (speaking for Britain.)

No matter how different all these people may be from each other, there is one belief system that they all have; when they say, “don’t be a little girl” they are saying, don’t be weak.

Let’s explore possible ways that this can be unhealthy for the females of our lives, and in turn, the lives of all people involved.

When a little girl hears those words, “don’t be a little girl,” she hears that being a little girl represents something that one doesn’t want to be. Being a little girl means being shamefully weak and perhaps even cowardly.

When this is said so often and so easily, with such certainly of its truth that being a little girl means that one is weak, there have to be consequences on the deep unconscious of the female hearing it.

Could this type of treatment of females identity why so many intelligent females put up with bad and unhealthy relationships with men? Could it be that many females at some deep subconscious level believe they are inherently weak, and that they need a man to complete them, no matter at what cost? If females are the ultimate symbol of weakness, how can they expect to be anything of real substance?

I can hear arguments against this going as follows: “but many females manage to be successful and strong and all of those things…” yes, that is true… could it be that it isn’t that these treatments do not affect females, but despite those effects, some of them still rise and the rest have hard time rising from under such weight of emotional put downs and never fully grow? Consider smoking; smoking doesn’t cause cancer in all people but we know that smoking does cause cancer in most.

If continuing the habit of using the phrase “don’t be a little girl” meaning, “don’t be weak” may hurt most females of our generation, we should examine how this also may affect the males of today and of the future. As Mary Wollstonecraft argued once: better education and better treatment of females is needed if we want to protect the potential of the human race. She was saying to everyone that these females whose emotional and intellectual well-being are being put in harms way will grow up to be poor mothers to all, to men and women.

It is just too easy to find examples of the emotionally, intellectually and spiritually stunted women in our generation. I am proposing that we at least give it some thought as to what we are saying to and around our little girls. I am proposing that we give our girls a full and fair chance to grow up to be as strong as any human being has potential to become. I am proposing that we do not use the word “little girls” to symbolize the state that is the weakest of the weakest. I propose that being a little girl is not something to be ashamed of. I am asking that we allow our little girls to grow up to realize their full selves, what ever that may be. I would like to suggest that that world, a world that had honored a full growth of the females, would be a very nice place to be for us all.

Temple Grandin, PH.D. speaking at Ted.

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:03:00 +0000

What a wonderful gift to our world she is!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Amazing, hopeful and inspiring talk by Patrick Awuah on TED.com

admin — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:20:06 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Barbie’s plastic surgery

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:32:42 +0000

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, an author of, A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman, argued that girls should be educated to strengthen their body, heart and mind. During her time females were being taught to focus on learning how to be physically attractive to men so that they may be cared for by the men.

Consequently, the most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. Infact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

-Mary Wollstonecraft

Over two hundred years later, Mattel appears to completely lack a good sense and a sense of responsibility toward how some of their best customers are being powerfully mis-educated by them. You can read about it at:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/10/13/barbies-fat-ankles-latest-flap-racial-body-image-controversies

I am interested in your thoughts. Please leave me a comment.

The importance of education

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:53:10 +0000

Education doesn’t make you happy, and nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we’re free, if we are, or because we’ve been educated, if we have, but because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears… tells us where delights are lurking… convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever… that of the mind… and gives us the assurance, the confidence, to walk the path our mind… our educated mind… offers.

- – Iris Murdoch

“There is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever… that of the mind”… meaning that if we are not educated, academically and other wise, we are not truly free. So if we want our children to grow up to be truly free human-beings, we must find a way to inspire them to fall in love with the idea of educating their minds.

How do we inspire our children? We must be inspiring parents and teachers alike. We must be in love with what we are teaching because if we do, they will. We must be in love with learning, for if we do, they will.

Home school, anyone?

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:05:04 +0000

I would like to start this by saying that I do not believe home-schooling is the only way to educate children well or even the best. I will say that home-schooling worked out very well for my son and me. But perhaps, the element in our home-schooling that made our educational technology work can be implemented in the more traditional settings to better support the students in their learning environment.

When the parents who home-school use their creativity as well as their open minds to encourage thoughts that are other than their own, providing diversity of ideas, intellectual and otherwise, it provides a well rounded intellectual experience and can be a wonderful learning environment for the child since, he or she is learning while receiving the unconditional love that parents can so easily provide.

Home schooled children may avoid the negative influence of misguided teachers who may discourage a child from being someone that is absolutely perfect due to their own lack of understanding or their awareness level. I have watched instances of brilliant children, who were deeply misunderstood by their teachers, labeled trouble makers and received mistreatment by most of the faculty(negative perspectives being reinforced by one teacher to another). These children ended up going through an unpleasant and unhappy educational experience, impacting them powerfully.

I know that there are many wonderful teachers in the traditonal educational systems and I want to take time to honour them since they are some of the most important people in our world. The great teachers. Our culture does not take notice enough of these very special beings even though they powerfully impact the young minds of our future… our future!

One of the reasons whyI home schooled my son was perhaps due to my exposure to a few bad situations. Another reason why I kept my son away from the traditional educational environment was that I wanted to preserve and protect my son’s brilliance, his creative instincts and his strong sense of self. I think if done right, a traditional school environment can do the same thing.

Teach them how to fishEducation

The Case for Explicit Vocabulary Instruction

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No child left behind, and other assessment tools…

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In defense of youth…

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Geoffrey Canada’s ‘Harlem Children’s Zone

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A Vindication Of The Rights Of Female Identity

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Temple Grandin, PH.D. speaking at Ted.

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Amazing, hopeful and inspiring talk by Patrick Awuah on TED.com

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Barbie’s plastic surgery

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The importance of education

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Home school, anyone?

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