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 105: Teachers: maybe it's time to dump the bad theories that hold children down (Wed., July 5, 2023)
Keep It Real. No More Theory.
You can do something--that's real life. Or you can talk about doing something, which is theory. Too much theory and there's no real life left.
I think that education to an astonishing degree is theory-driven. That's professors talking, talking, talking.
This means concretely that a bunch of highly paid experts could spend a whole day talking about education and never mention a single thing that students need to learn..
Sometimes, just glancing around a room or a street or a scene I'll see something that was never mentioned when I was in school. Actual knowledge, actual facts, these should be the entire essence of teaching and education but in fact they're often the last items mentioned.
Background article:
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The best way to understand problems in public schools
is by reading this book: 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
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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 --- Bruce Deitrick Price
Episode 105 Wed., July 5, 2023
Teachers: maybe it's time to dump the bad theories that hold children down
Ladies and gentlemen...
Typically, our schools and ed schools are not very pragmatic. There is too much grad school theorizing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson cut to the heart of the matter when he pointed out that: "An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”
Schools are often set up to promote ignorance and illiteracy. Let's go in the opposite direction. Here are pedagogical principles that encourage a return to the basics:
First, teach the easiest things first. Get the kids moving. Get them involved.
Second, don't hesitate to teach something two or three times. That way, they will feel in charge of their new knowledge. They will gain confidence, which is the most important thing.
Three, teach the most interesting, most entertaining material first, second, and third. Teach what I call the WOW, the material that makes you exclaim, “Wow!!!”
Four, use as many pictures, graphics, and videos as possible.
Five, use hands-on demonstrations whenever possible.
Six, short lessons only. You can come back to the subject tomorrow or the next week or whatever. The idea that you can pound away at something for an hour and the kids will learn even 20% of it is unrealistic. Small lessons scattered through the year are going to leave much more of a trace.
Seven, keep it light and funny if possible. Try to be entertaining, not didactic. Tell a few jokes every day. Don't think of it as education, think of it as sharing your favorite hobby with students.
Big number eight: Avoid the pedant’s paradigm. A boring, somewhat difficult collection of information, told with a flat voice, going nowhere and not seeming to amount to anything. You know that many students won't get it but you keep going anyway. Later you build on the non-existing learning that they have acquired, thereby guaranteeing that virtually nobody will know what you talked about.
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Now I want to explain the phrase in praise of wow....
It grew out of my encounter with videos showing colorblind people experiencing colors for the first time. It’s shocking for the people and shocking for us watching them. Typically they are overwhelmed with surprise and joy, perhaps also with tears and regret. Many of them look around and exclaim, “This is what you've been seeing all your life???”
My thought is that all of education should have a big element of shock and pleasure. Think back to when you learned something really interesting for the first time. That's the feeling you want.
Every article I see about K-12 tells me the classrooms are full of theoretical nonsense. Boring irrelevant nonsense that actually kills learning. Let's get rid of this.
Finally, show the students something beautiful, surprising, unique. Don't tell them theories. Show them parts of reality they don't know about.
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