Let's Fix Education / by Bruce Deitrick Price
Savvy, practical insights on where our Education Establishment went wrong and how most schools can be improved.LET'S FIX EDUCATION explains the many dysfunctional theories and methods operating within our schools. This podcast is intended for parents, teachers, and community leaders who want education reform.
Each week, LET'S FIX EDUCATION examines another problem in our public schools, such as: Constructivism. Learning styles. Sight-words. No memorization. Cooperative learning. Prior knowledge. Reform math. The dilution of knowledge. Common Core. Project-based learning. Student-centered, etc. In fact, there are DOZENS of counterproductive learning and teaching theories, all made worse by ideological motives.
Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is a novelist, artist, and education reformer. He has analyzed the problems in education for more than 30 years. Price is the author of "Saving K-12: What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?" (190 pages) His main education site is Improve-Education.org. For more information about book and author, visit Lit4u.com. Newest novels are "Frankie" (about a harmless robot) and "The Boy Who Saves The World" (about a boy who saves the world).
"Bruce Price’s SAVING K-12 is a MUST read! It is precise, concise and powerful. Action is required…for the sake of our children, our grandchildren and the future of the American Republic!” Robert W. Sweet, Jr., long-time President of The National Right to Read Foundation
Let's Fix Education / by Bruce Deitrick Price
Episode 102: A Best Way To Teach Everything (Wednesday, June 14, 2023)
Episode 102: A Best Way To Teach Everything (Wed., June 14, 2023)
Schools could teach so much more. Make all instruction much simpler, much faster, much more dramatic. With lots of repetition.
Tell the kids what you're going to explain to them, why it’ll be fun, and how they can use the information for the rest of their lives.
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Here's what dramatic instruction looks like:
A Day in Pompeii (start with this one)
The Last Day of Pompeii (shorter but more aggressive)
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Background article: Constructivism is Dead. Good Riddance to K–12 Rubbish
Instead of teaching facts and knowledge, our public schools concentrate on rubbish (my opinion) such as Constructivism, which basically distracts teacher and class. That's the progressive approach, keep the kids busy on things that won't amount to anything later.
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The best way to understand problems in public schools
is to read: Saving K-12
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Word-Wise Education
757-455-5020
Bruce Deitrick Price
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New novel: Art and Beauty.
Crime fiction. Set in Manhattan.
Dangerously well written.
Published by Web-E-Books. Publisher says: “Bruce Deitrick Price puts
a new spin on the all-American, sexy, fast-talking detective story by creating
a truly fresh crime-fighter personality and placing his original P.I. character, Jon Dak, among movers and shakers in the NYC art and fashion world.”
< Enjoy Chapter 1. ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY >
< Enjoy Chapter 2. MISS BABBAGE >
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@educatt
Let's Fix Education explains to Americans why their schools are so bad. The people in charge prefer mediocrity because they are socialists of one kind or another. If people work together to promote real education, we'll have it.
LET'S FIX EDUCATION by Bruce Deitrick Price
Episode 102 (Wed., June 14, 2023)
A Best Way To Teach Everything
Usually I'm explaining why our public schools are so bad. Mainly, the Education Establishment has adopted lots of inefficient gimmicks that sabotage teaching. We need to get rid of them. That's certainly one necessary reform.
But now I want to come at reform from the opposite direction. What can every teacher do immediately to turn K-12 around? Teach more by a factor of two or more.
Master Strategy: make all instruction much simpler, much faster, much more dramatic. With lots of repetition.
The tendency of teachers, even when they're properly educated, is to start at the beginning of something and spend hours or days getting to the end of it. Slow and scattered.
We want to create explosions of unforgettable interest and understanding, Even if just a small point, in time it will connect to bigger points. That's how you form a matrix of knowledge.
Experiment with topics you are excited about. Find a good video, a good model, and/or a good toy, then explain in a few sentences why some particular point is a wonderful fascinating thing to know. Tease the subject. Sell the process. Tell the kids what you're going to explain to them, why it’ll be fun, and how they can use the information for the rest of their lives.
Example one: You produce a gyroscope, put it on the edge of your desk, spin it, tilt it so it's almost horizontal. Stare admiringly. Wonder how it keeps going. Then you start talking about the Earth and the other planets. Show a video or photograph of the solar system or any planets. All of them are just spinning out in space. Spinning for the same reason the gyroscope is spinning. When you start something spinning and there's nothing to slow it down, it will keep spinning for millions of years.
Note that the details are not important. Finishing the subject is not important. I'd say stop after 20 minutes and change to another subject entirely. Leave them wanting more. Tomorrow you can do the whole thing again with the same materials but with different emphasis and more facts. You can ask the kids what they find most interesting. A week later you can do the whole thing again in a different way.
And what is my point? Those kids will never forget that gyroscope leaning precariously off the side of your desk.
Example two: whenever something exciting happens anywhere in the world, point to the location on the large map you no doubt have in your classroom. Point to nearby landmarks. The goal is to teach them geography and they don't even know it's happening. Teach scale of miles, for example, help them understand that the location you're pointing to is the same size as where they live or half the size or 10 times the size. (People talk so much about inclusion. Wouldn’t it be fine if your school included lots of students who know geography?)
Example three: put up a slide of Hawaiian islands and ask how these islands came to be in the middle of the Pacific in very deep water. These islands are actually extinct volcanoes pushed up by hot lava deep inside the Earth.
Show the film clip of Mount Saint Helena blowing up and the lava racing down faster than a car can go. Now there are thousands of extinct volcanos and hundreds of active volcanoes over the surface of the Earth. No life was possible on earth for millions of years. The landscape was an endless panorama of violent and unpredictable volcanoes. For example, the monster known as Krakatoa, which was able to turn the sky dark all the way around the world in 1883.
Example four: extend the story to Pompeii 20 centuries ago. There is a wonderful digital reconstruction called A Day in Pompeii, about 9 minutes. This is one of the great catastrophes of human history, and thousands of people who lived there were trapped in the lava, with their jewelry and their art and the bread on the table. The video speaks for itself, so you hardly have to do any work at all. There is also Herculaneum, several miles away. I'd say do one of these things every few weeks. In a year these kids will be archaeologists.
Sadly, the Education Establishment does not care for too much knowledge. But if you're a teacher who does, there is so much room for activity and accomplishment. The goal is that 20 years in the future your students are telling their friends about all the exciting things they learned when you were their teacher.