pobod

Malkin is not wrong to warn of this. Integrated studies especially across grades only “works” if the level suits everybody, in other words lower. I have seen it work we’ll at the university level but not below.

Those types of subjects can be successfully dealt with within existing subject and grade levels.

I see Ontario has been taken over by the dreamers of pie-in-the-sky no testing, no grades and project-based learning instigated by the Equinox crowd - ” Over this never-before-attempted weekend, representatives from around the world - including Brazil, Canada, Finland, India, Singapore, Uganda, the United Kingdom and the United States- will explore best practices and promising initiatives in education in a series of “anything-goes”, “no-holds-barred” behind-closed-door meetings where each person will be free to speak their mind and put even the most contentious ideas on the table.

When the dust clears, participants will emerge with the Equinox Communiqué, their combined plan for how to build high schools that prioritize problem solving, critical thinking, and innovation.”  http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rebooting-high-school-hackers-revolutionaries—redesigners-take-on-learning-2030-225345601.html

The Equinox Communique - http://www.wgsi.org/sites/wgsi-live.pi.local/files/WGSILearning2030Communique_0.pdf?__utma=1.1696866397.1380914282.1380914282.1381001999.2&__utmb=1.6.10.1381001999&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1381001999.2.2.utmcsr=interactive.tvo.org|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/012_learning2030/&__utmv=-&__utmk=172258467

A brief summary - “To achieve these goals, we require a radically different structure for learning in 2030, one in which traditional concepts of classes, courses, timetables, and grades are replaced by more excitable, creative and student-directed forms of learning. This develops deep conceptual understanding, which can then be applied in other contexts.”

John Malloy must have been one of the educators either participating or attending - knee-deep in old ideas of the Enlightenment era concerning the ideas that emerged from the cultural movement of the intellectuals. If I do say so myself, the upper elite doing a lot of naval button glazing and admiring their belly buttons, while the underclass went without food and shelter.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I do think perhaps 1 to 2 % of the student population are capable and achieving in a school of no grades, no testing and eagerly learning on your own, without being told to. The rest of us do need structure, a strong foundation to learned new knowledge and skills that are build upon a strong foundation. I can easily see myself in the high school of a project base school, putting in minimum effort, tackling world hunger and water shortages. and never attending school. I be kicked out eventually, and never graduate high school. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/schools-of-2030-no-grades-no-exams-no-teachers/article14699733/

An educator’s blog who attended - a good match for the Malloy follow.  http://andychandler-grevatt.blogspot.ca/2013/10/a-school-for-2030-equinox-learning-2030.html

Another blog - not an educator but relevant - http://cmaule.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/reforming-education-learning-2030/

The Blog and web site for WGSI, and where the educators are flocking to - http://www.wgsi.org/blog?__utma=1.1061382179.1385140295.1385140295.1385146662.2&__utmb=1.1.10.1385146662&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1385140295.1.1.utmcsr=google|utmccn=(organic)|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=(not provided)&__utmv=-&__utmk=225400474

No doubt, the new Ontario education vision will sound more like the vision of the Equinox crowd in tone and substance. That said, the bit about Ontario’s Premier wanting to go beyond the 3 Rs, could be the signal of getting rid of testing, curriculum and grades, just in time for the kids being born in 2013, and graduating in 2030. In reality, from my search today, a way to cut education funding by passing the costs of education to the families on the extras that the student is expected to learned on their own, while students get to know about their passions and learning deeply about the passions. Calculus classes would only be available on-line for any student to learned on their own. The knowledge needed to understand what lies behind the numbers, but apparently according to the proponents of no grades-no testing, all that stuff can be learned from the buttons of the microwave oven and where ever one sees numbers in their project-based learning. 

What I can’t get over, is the idea that no grades-no tests schools can be applied across the board, no matter who the students are…........a pie-in-the-sky dream.

Did You Say:  “Be afraid, be very afraid” ?

When the premier of Ontario, a former trustee and former Minister of Education, starts parroting the playbook of international change agents it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. 

“We need to find space to focus on higher-order skills like creativity, collaboration, community and critical thinking,” says Kathleen Wynne after a conference recently. 

Who else was a leader at the conference, York Region District School Board, “The Quest for Increased Student Achievement and Well-Being” ?

Three veteran change agents were there — Andy Hargreaves, Michael Fullan, Dennis Shirley. 

Is Premier Wynne talking about the international movement that aims to radically shift public education to a global social order ?

See my essay,  THE BIG DISGUISED SHIFT IN EDUCATION

http://www.parentsteachingparents.net/2013/11/zack-hill/

Just Posted To Toronto Star

A similar comment to the above, but called “Smell the Coffee Anyone ?” just posted and accepted.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/11/21/premier_kathleen_wynne_ontario_education_needs_to_move_beyond_focus_on_3rs.html#

I’m going to be very interested to see if there is any response to my post, and if anyone really understands the FULL DIMENSIONS of what’s going on.  Wynne has been involved in education for more than 10 years and I think she is one of the important shepherds in this international movement.

One of my prime concerns is that any “public consultation” will be purely window dressing, that it’s a pro forma exercise, and that this plan for the big shift is a fait accompli.  OISE flavor!

This isn’t my area at all, and ‘higher order thinking skills’ certainly sounds like a good idea to me.

To me, ‘higher order’ sounds wonderful - taking those painfully developed reading and math skills, and using them to explore the complexity of the real world. Turning access to information into analysis and discovery.  Turning writing skills into effective communication.  Turning social understanding into collaboration and leadership.

So I did a bit of reading, and found at least four different schools of skeptics.  The first worries that teaching collaboration and imagination simply subtracts from teaching reading and math.  The second worries that teaching higher order skills is a Trojan for indoctrinating views that the parents may not share.  The third worries that there is neither research on how to teach these skills, nor training to support teachers at the front lines.  The fourth worries that the whole exercise is simply to provide cover for eliminating testing and dumbing down the curriculum.

If my understanding is right, Doug is in the third group, Nancy is in the fourth group, and Tunya is in the second group,

Can anyone shine some further light on this matter?

Well, I belong to a fifth school of skeptics, the one that advocates waiting to teach higher-order skills until the pre-requisite lower-order skills are in place. To do otherwise is to build your house on sand.

Matthew 7:24-27

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

I`m with you Malkin! #5

A great deal of the planning and posturing and making sure the press is present to recount both the agenda and the outcomes of the meeting is a tactic to bluff the customers of the school boards.

By the way,Tunya`s essay and cartoons are phenomenal,they tell it all.

Tunya, I’ve read your posts here and on your blog. Very well put and I concur to the point that I had to share as this was eating at me for a while.

When my daughter was in grade 1, in public school she we told to construct an “advertising poster” showing some “classroom rules.” Of course the writing was being marked, as were the pictures used, their positioning, etc. followed by a presentation.

Having a background that had some formal training in advertising and layout, I knew that a 7 year old was completely incapable of doing this to attain a level 4 without - not so much my help, but my istruction as to how an advertisement should look. I had to TEACH her about layout, I had to TEACH her about writing for ads, I had to TEACH her how to use an “extacto” knife on a self healing mat, against a ruler, and I had to TEACH her presentation skills. Then I had to supervise and give examples, and realized that in this time, I also had to teach her the difference between sentences, and slogans, and point form, etc. all of which were NEVER TAUGHT. It was only the expectation that was there. My daughter completed the project with my supervision, not my help and she did beautifully; but the teacher of course accused me of doing it for her. Her presentation, however, was amazing, and no one could take that away from my child. To the teacher I replied: “I didn’t do it for her. I TAUGHT her how it should be done. But I would much rather she be taught phonics, spelling, grammar, and artithmetic, with some music, art (like CUTTING and PASTING properly) and history, geography, and science suitable to kids who can’t read at more than a grade 1 level.” The teacher said she is only following “Minsitry Guidelines”.

Now let’s push ahead to high school…...when my daughter’s essay comes back marked incorrectly, with problems associated to her punctuation, I simply look at her say, “Sweetie, you know what you have to do.” And off she goes armed with grammar that she acquired during her home schooling years, and the response to the teacher: “When I am using a conjunctive adverb to separate a subordinate clause, and the adverb of choice has more than one syllable, I must place a semi-colon before it and a comma after it, because those are the grammatical rules.” And her mark for that point is restored, once the teacher checks her book and realizes the child was right.

My point is that the schools should have TAUGHT this. The same way they should TEACH other things which would provide a foundation upon which to pursue future directives.

“Teaching” kids how to build a well in the Third World collaboratively between many grades is only leading to a fiasco. Unless they are TAUGHT engineering principles by their parents, or by an online tuturial, and they possess the necessary foundational skills upon which to build and process any new-found knowledge, virtual “well-building” becomes an exercise in futility; and a bloody waste of time and money.

The fact that they will use “creative skills” doesn’t mean that the outcome will in fact be “usable”. Creativity and collaboration doesn’t mean much if the genius in the group with the know-how is cast aside, and the outcome is nothing more than a well-intentioned pile or picture of something that will never come to fruition other than to be displayed in halls of a school to demonstrate to parents who also don’t know any better, that if nothing else the schools are at least keeping their offspring occupied.

But oh to actually teach them HOW to build a well, well, what for? Let them figure it out. After all, we can’t and don’t very well expect an elementary school teacher to posses the necessary engineering, chemistry based knowledge, geographical and geophysical capabilties, and architectural presence of mind to actually know how to do it. We only expect her to guide young children to develop a great feeling of self worth and internal happiness in thinking that their ideas are actually plausible and provide great help to those in the Third World by being pasted to a display board.

Oh we will rue the day when our bridges and mechanical structures collapse, and planes fall out of the sky, and medicine advancement ceases, as the general population will not know much about anything, and also be unable to physically provide the output of their past generations, and sit back, awaiting to be bestowed with that grand sensation of self-entitlement to which they have been so conditioned by our current school system all their lives.

Skeptics’ Deep Thinking About Deep Thinking

Tom deserves an A+ for starting the necessary work of categorizing the various sets of skeptics who have reservations about the general 21st C Skills mission.  This is important if we are to engage in the discussion about “transformation” of our schools — whether for or against.

The point of “application” of knowledge and skills and deep thinking generally is probably not in much dispute other than when developmentally kids are ready for this.

The categories of skeptics about 21st C Learning— 4 by Tom, 1 more by Malkin, 2 more by me, Tunya

1 — Subtracts from reading and math

2 — Trojan Horse for indoctrination of views parents may not share

3 — Research is lacking on how to teach these “competencies”, nor are teachers yet prepared

4 — It’s an anti-testing, anti-accountability, dumbing down move

5 — Reading and math mastery are prerequisites before deep thinking can be meaningful

6 — The methods themselves cause cynicism and skepticism — unilaterally being imposed without consent of the governed or those to implement

7 — Worldview changes and shifts of human nature seem part of a larger international agenda than just shifts in local school procedures.

Thanks Tunya, your list is much better.  We are doing well on the ‘analysis, critical thinking, collaboration, communications, and life-long learning’ stuff.

That points to the other side of this discussion.  Our deepest wish is to develop students who confidently engage in these activities, as we do ourselves.  But these skills must be encouraged, modeled, taught, and practiced.

Most of our worries about this initiative suggest that we think it will be done badly, or subverted for the benefit of adults.  But are we throwing the baby out with the bath? 

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

I favour teacher less teaching it deeper but there is an element where Tom is correct I would be in group 3. You cannot flip a switch and change educational pedagogy. more like turning the proverbial ocean liner. Massive amonts of PD preservice and a decade of work to do this and by that time it will have been replaced.

“DEEP THINKING” Cartoons

This 21st Century Skills movement is engendering some pretty caustic cartoons.

Here are two more to the one I had on my blog post trying to explain the dangers of 21st C Learning.

- on my post Big Disguised Shift in Education http://www.parentsteachingparents.net/2013/11/zack-hill/

“D+”  http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/assessment-as-learning/

- What the heck is it ??
https://bay168.afx.ms/att/GetInline.aspx?messageid=9009148d-55dd-11e3-808b-002264c154ba&attindex=0&cp=-1&attdepth=0&imgsrc=cid:41E06779-7006-4684-B12B-A2319B96C49B@home&cid=6164ed435ecbe8b2&blob=MHxCb29rRGlzY292ZXJ5LmpwZ3xpbWFnZS9qcGVn&hm__login=tunyasez&hm__domain=hotmail.com&ip=10.42.152.8&d=d1440&mf=0&hm__ts=Mon 25 No,v 2013 22:34:23 GMT&st=tunyasez&hm__ha=01_851c33ddda679da7f7bce1c6db826c660d7e500bf701f601f593041d375c95d0&oneredir=1

Hope this link works.

Should we just shrug about these “cute” cartoons?  Or should we be offended and outraged about this BIG SHIFT?

We need a framework for discussion of this important danger in our midst, an invasion that’s already happening, and which is not understood nor being resisted. 

I`m concerned with K-3.

They know from the data that many poor kids and people who immigrate from other countries who only speak English at school and those with an inherent reading disability don`t reach grade level by grade 3,their fate is doomed if we don`t fix this.
The theories of blended learning are a waste of breath on the disengaged and those that didn`t learn to read.

No surprise to me that rather than deal with this extremely important problem so our country benefits economically,they talk about this stuff.
The hard stuff that needs dealing with is swept under the carpet.
The sad thing is,this is something we know how to fix as long as your advisors aren`t from OISE..

“DEEP THINKING” Cartoons –correction

I see that my third link above doesn’t work.  I’ve now been able to install it on my blog.

http://www.parentsteachingparents.net/2013/11/book-discovery-aha/

I’m really enjoying looking for cartoons, comics and satire on the common core.  It’s starting to tell me a lot about the character of the people who are relaying them.  Remarkably, I am finding, especially among the satire, some very nervous people who are — even while mocking the opposition — displaying their “incredulity” that they’ve been able to get away with it.

As we study this whole phenomenon of common core/21st Century Skills/Personalized Learning we will see just how pushy this whole thing has been and how very dismissive of parents, as if they don’t count.

When THE ENFORCER Comes To Town, Be Afraid . . .

How come no-one makes the connection?

Al Gore comes to Toronto and meets with Premier Wynne.  She makes statements such as:

“We need to find space to focus on higher-order skills like creativity, collaboration, community and critical thinking . . . Quite frankly, I know that many of you have been pushing for this for some time and fostering this learning in your own schools and boards.

“We need to learn what’s working and what’s not, and then we have to use that knowledge to move the whole system forward.”

Headlines in the papers during this love-in included environmental issues:

“Ontario Premier Wynne vows to ban coal-powered electricity”

“Environmental/Eco blogger, 10 year old Hannah Alper meets Al Gore”

At the same time, coincidentally, a principal who is leading a move to have problem-solving , multi-age groups in schools for collaborative learning says:

“There’s plenty of evidence that the traditional method doesn’t work for everyone . . . We have an obligation in education that as the world is changing around us, that we continue to find ways to keep up with those changes.”

That last quote is very telling and chilling. Does it signal a total rejection of the “traditional” (which works for some) for a total adoption of the “progressive” style of education which obviously ALSO doesn’t work for everyone?

Why is “choice” between traditional or progressive not to be available?  Why not have other alternative approaches of learning styles and settings added to the buffet?

Professional teachers, in consultation with parents of individual students, should be able to select from a number of best practices.

So, the question remains.  Why does there seem to be a steady, determined push to one style only?  The progressive way? Constructivism?  The socialist agenda?

Well, the tortoise is slowly going to cross the finish line in 2014, or so goes the plan.

Look up Fabianism, official mascot — the tortoise!  130 years later they would like to celebrate the victory of incrementalism, gradualism, and attrition of old ways.  Education is a key to mass adoption of attitudes, values, and emotional predispositions to collective statism.

Marcus Roberts, Deputy General Secretary, Fabian Society, “worked on the Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama US presidential campaigns.”

So, don’t be surprised when Al Gore is acting as an enforcer for laggards, dragging their tails, as the 130-year anniversary of Fabianism draws nearer.  Motto — Educate, Agitate, Organize.