A freshman at Georgetown University wrote an article this past weekend describing how his K-12 education could have prepared him for the concept-based, higher-level thinking and transference of learning that his professors expect of him. The student, Darryl Robinson, described how he learned to be very successful during his K-12 years by memorizing the teacher-delivered knowledge level content to give it back on the assessments.
Looking at the article online today, there are 530 comments. Many congratulate Mr. Robinson for his courage in sharing his experience. Others point to the weakness of DC public schools. Others question the nature of our standards-based curricula that aim so low on Bloom’s Taxonomy. The central theme is the usual “why cannot we do a better job in our schools?”
One way to get folks thinking about improving schools, specifically in making math instruction more engaging and constructivist, is to listen to a recent Edreach podcast interview with Sylvia Martinez of GenYES. The discussion starts with the flipped classroom mania and expands from there.
A second connection to shifting our schools away from Mr. Robinson’s type of “schooling” experience is Sylvia’s series of posts on math education. Sylvia offers several excellent ideas.
April 18, 2012 at 6:42 am
Thanks for pointing out this article, David. This is a serious problem. While Darryl’s article is rooted in his own experience, there are many poignant stories and serious implications to this form of school presented in the documentary Race to Nowhere (http://www.racetonowhere.com/). If you haven’t seen it, try to catch a screening.