With the Reform Symposium happening this past weekend, I was not able to read as many articles that I usually would during the week. Hopefully you take a chance to check out the links and read the articles in their entirety. One of the stories that I have shared has nothing to do with education, yet everything to do with education.
- The Risks of Rewards – Alfie Kohn is an author that I have read about a lot and I have enjoyed reading his books. This article shared by Joe Bower this week echos a lot of my sentiments on rewards systems in the classroom. I have had several discussions with teachers and how rewards work for them in the classroom. My belief is that they are doing the best for the child, a reward system may work temporarily, but also conditions students to work for rewards, not become lifelong learners.
- Some key points:
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Studies over many years have found that
behavior modification programs are rarely successful at producing
lasting changes in attitudes or even behavior. When the rewards
stop, people usually return to the way they acted before the program
began. -
Deci and Ryan (1985) describe the use of
rewards as “control through seduction.” Control, whether by threats
or bribes, amounts to doing things to children rather than working
with them. This ultimately frays relationships, both among students
(leading to reduced interest in working with peers) and between
students and adults (insofar as asking for help may reduce the
probability of receiving a reward). -
Moreover, students who are encouraged to
think about grades, stickers, or other “goodies” become less
inclined to explore ideas, think creatively, and take chances. At
least ten studies have shown that people offered a reward generally
choose the easiest possible task (Kohn, 1993). -
The implications of this analysis and these
data are troubling. If the question is “Do rewards motivate
students?”, the answer is, “Absolutely: they motivate students to
get rewards.”
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- We spend 80% of our classroom time on the skills needed for 10% of our jobs | Dangerously Irrelevant – This was an interesting blog post that was quite controversial to many of those that were commenting. I also was curious about the ending of the post. What I thought was most powerful about this post was not necessarily the original post, but the discussion after. Read the comment section and weigh in your opinion. Through discussions like this, is where a lot of learning will happen.
- Some key points:
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The factory model high school as we now call it was designed in about 1910 or 1920. The idea of that comprehensive high school was to cream off about 5% of the kids for specialized knowledge work. They would go off to college and fill the very small number of jobs that required that kind of thinking. The rest of the kids were supposed to be prepared for the farm, the factory, the mills – for you know, fairly rote kinds of learning. And over time vocational programs were put in place and other kinds of general programs.
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The average fifth grader received five times as much instruction in basic skills as instruction focused on problem solving or reasoning; this ratio was 10:1 in first and third grades.
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Principals, superintendents, school board members, and policymakers: Could the problem be any clearer? Isn’t this a pretty damning indictment of our inability to change? Aren’t you all supposed to be leaders?
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- Has education changed? « What Ed Said – I have commented before that “What Ed Said” is one of my favourite new blogs in my reader. It is with posts like this that highlight our students as partners in education, not just simply there to absorb learning from us. Read this fantastic guest post on this blog.
- Some key points:
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We talked about the relevance of standardized tests and the children realised that such testing does not necessarily reflect true learning. They brought up the fact that there is so much more to school and we can show our learning in so many more meaningful ways.
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One child relayed a story of an 8 year old who can name every capital city in the world and they questioned the value of knowing such facts. We spoke about concepts and big ideas being more useful than a bunch of facts that are readily accessible on the internet.
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- CTV Edmonton – Edmonton community rallies around orphaned boy – This is a story that I saw on the newspaper stand this morning and it immediately brought me to tears. The reason why I share this story with you is because it just reminded me of HOW important it is that we care for our students and make a family environment. Although this is an extreme situation, there are many students that come from home lives that are lacking support and care. Schools need to be the safe haven for these children. As a principal, I need to treat every child in our school as if they were part of my own family and care for them. Learn the stories of your students and try your best to understand their lives. I sometimes hate the word students because ultimately, we are all just people. This young boy in this story will need continued support and my heart goes out to him.
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The goal is to get Aashar Arshad through a trauma no one, let alone a child, should have to endure : in an instant, the 11-year-old lost his entire immediate family in a horrific crash.
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A minivan carrying his father Arshad Mahmoud, mother Shakila, two older sisters Mahlaka and Dolly, as well as his grandfather and a 14-year-old family friend collided on a Hwy. near Golden Sunday afternoon, killing everyone inside the smaller vehicle.
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
