30. You say you want this so then why are you doing that? Joe Bower www.joebower.org joe.bower.teache [email_address] @joe_bower
Editor's Notes
Cognitive dissonance is never convenient, but the most successful people frame it as an opportunity to be learned from rather than a crisis to be avoided.
Cognitive dissonance is never convenient, but the most successful people frame it as an opportunity to be learned from rather than a crisis to be avoided.
Mistakes were made (but not by me) “So powerful is the need for consonance that when people are forced to look at disconfirming evidence they will find a way to criticize, distort, or dismiss it so that they can maintain or even strengthen their existing belief.”
Regret and guilt is not the answer. I’m not here to condemn all those who came before us. We look in the rear view mirror, not so we can judge, but so we can better see through the front windshield. Condemning and or romanticizing the past gets us no where.
A fish cannot imagine the absence of water, so he cannot consider its presence. Robert Fried - The Game of School is most destructive where least acknowledged.
A richer understanding of how and why our minds work as they do is the first step towards breaking the self-justification habit. And that, in turn, requires us to be more mindful of our behavior and the reasons for our choice. It takes time, self-reflection, and willingness.
Alfie Kohn - Punished by Rewards - There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of an influential idea, and there is a time to fear its hold over us. The time to worry is when the idea is so widely shared that we no longer even notice it, when it is so deeply rooted that it feels to us like plain common sense. At the point when objections are not answered anymore because they are no longer even raised, we are not in control: we do not have the idea; it has us."
Motivation - How motivated are you vs How are you motivated. Intrinsic vs Extrinsic. Inversely related.
Time out from positive reinforcement. Developed on lab rats & pigeons. Forcibly isolated from your peers in front of your peers. Creates an environment of conditional acceptance. Punishments rupture relationships. The most at-risk, high needs kids need us most, therefore, we would never punish them. Dr. Ross Greene’s Lost at School
Competition - zero-sum game – success is dependent on another’s failure. Peers as seen as obstacles to your own success. Collaboration trumps competition Definitive case against Competition – Alfie Kohn’s No Contest
Seymor Papert - It is this freedom of the teacher to decide and, indeed, the freedom of the children to decide, that is most horrifying to the bureaucrats who stand at the head of current education systems. They are worried about how to verify that the teachers are really doing their job properly, how to enforce accountability and maintain quality control. They prefer the kind of curriculum that will lay down, from day to day, from hour to hour, what the teacher should be doing, so that they can keep tabs on it. Of course, every teacher knows this is an illusion. It’s not an effective method of insuring quality. It is only a way to cover ass. Everybody can say, “I did my bit, I did my lesson plan today, I wrote it down in the book.” Nobody can be accused of not doing the job. But this really doesn’t work. What the bureaucrat can verify and measure for quality has nothing to do with getting educational results–those teachers who do good work, who get good results, do it by exercising judgment and doing things in a personal way, often undercover, sometimes even without acknowledging to themselves that they are violating the rules of the system. Of course one must grant that some people employed as teachers do not do a good job. But forcing everyone to teach by the rules does not improve the “bad teachers”– it only hobbles the good ones.
The more we tighten our focus on highly prescribed curriculums that are enforced by test and punish standardized exams the more we miss.
Banking concept of Education – Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed Lectures may be the most efficient way for information to get from the teacher to the student’s notebook without ever entering their brains.
Multiple Choice = Thinking handcuffs Distractors clever but never authentic - students can’t even generate a response! Need M/C – someone outside of classroom or teacher with too many kids – crowd control business. Ambiguity We find what we look for – "What are you doing?" a helpful passerby asks. "Looking for my car keys," answers the drunk. "Did you drop them somewhere around here?" "I don't think so," replies the drunk. "Then why look here? the puzzled would-be helper wonders. "It's the only place where there's any light."
What if the real problem with that homework your students didn’t do was that you assigned it in the first place? Myth of 10 minute rule Second shift No homework before high school – law of diminishing returns Mission Impossible Homework – Your homework, if you choose to accept it… which may be the only circumstances homework proves to be useful at all. That is when kids have a say…
Alfie Kohn - Schools our Children Deserve - Abigail is given plenty of worksheets to complete in class as well as a substantial amount of homework. She studies to get good grades, and her school is proud of its high standardized test scores. Outstanding students are publicly recognized by the use of honor rolls, awards assemblies, and bumper stickers. Abigail's teacher, a charismatic lecturer, is clearly in control of the class: students raise their hands and wait patiently to be recognized. The teacher prepares detailed lesson plans well ahead of time, uses the latest textbooks, and gives regular quizzes to make sure kids stay on track. Grandpa 1916 Dad 1953 Me 1978 Kayley 2008
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