Category Archives: Learning
How we learn best
What I learned about learning – by learning to snowboard
My wonderful girlfriend and I are back from a great week of skiing and snowboarding in Alpe d'Huez (she skis, I board) and I picked up a new little trick on the trip. Here I am just starting to learn it:
I've … Continue Reading ››
People who care, share
The Great Canadian Homework Ban
It seems like the snowball is rolling for the anti-homework movement.
Two weeks ago I blogged about an article that says that homework is bad for school kids. My canadian friend Chris Corrigan commented how he "unschools" his kids and wrote more about it on his (excellent) blog.
Chris … Continue Reading ›› Let’s not settle for any less any more
If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the onrushing multitude. … Continue Reading ››
Homework makes kids hate learning
Time Magazine has an article on why homework is a bad thing for school kids. They cite Alfie Kohn whose work is a constant inspiration to me both when it relates to our workplaces and schools.
Kohn's claim is simple: There is not one single study that shows that homework helps kids learn. At … Continue Reading ››
The new-skool workplace..?
Yesterday I wrote about a new kind of school (well, new-ish, it's been around for 35 years) where students and teachers make decisions democratically, there are no classes, students do whatever they want all day, and if they want to study something they have to find a teacher and arrange for it to happen.
In … Continue Reading ››
A new-skool school
Most schools are machines for breaking children. Most of what goes on in regular schools is completely contrary to the way kids work, and the only way to get kids to comply is to break them.
Children were never meant to:
- Sit still
- Focus on only one subject at a time
- Spend most of the day not playing
- Be quiet
- Follow … Continue Reading ››
And that will teach them what, exactly?
When I first read that an employee of an alarm company has sued the company for emotional distress experienced during a company training event I just thought "here we go again, yet another American suing over nothing." Remember that case a few years ago where a man sued his colleague for farting at work?
But … Continue Reading ››
Common sense takes a beating
In yet another telling blow to common sense, a recent study in British schools concluded that:
...there was no evidence at all that the teaching of grammar had any beneficial effect on the quality of writing done by pupils.This excellent article in The Guardian by Philip Pullman (author of some great children's fantasy books - … Continue Reading ››