The Great Connections Seminar

The Great Connections Seminar
Discussing ethics

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Educate for Problem-Solving, Not Factories

Good article in Forbes about what education should be like, with interesting statistics from 1948 about homework and lots of information about very successful contemporary programs.

Frankly, just about everything mentioned are things we do in Montessori schools.

“It’s the teacher’s job to point young minds towards the right kinds of questions,” suggests Sugata Mitra, professor of educational technology at Newcastle University.

“The teacher doesn’t need to give any answers, the answers are everywhere. And we know now from years of measurements, that learners who find the answers for themselves, retain it better than if they’re told the answer.”Been doing this 105 years now!

2 comments:

cellurl said...

I just had an "aahaa" moment. There exists a need for Montesori Principles in the public school system. I don't know what that would look like, but if a class/program/method were identified that could be injected into the public school system, you might have a winning plan!

Unknown said...

There are a fair number of Montessori programs in public schools, but they tend to get "adjusted" to fit the public school bureaucracy needs.

Or made more traditional because the public school teachers have a hard time incorporating; no, rather grasping and integrating this entirely different Gestalt of education into their thinking.

Actually, some aspects of Montessori have been incorporated, e.g. child-size furniture, materials to work with that teach the concepts the students should learn, but I don't know what it would take to get the big-picture Montessori plan implemented.

It's so different, it is misunderstood and distorted by most people. That's the problem!