Posts Tagged ‘Education’

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Never Take the Dream out of the Child

March 3, 2014

ellis cashmore

It doesn’t matter how far fetched a child’s dreams may be, or how much it seems to distract them from their schoolwork, their dreams are vital to their growth and development.

A child’s dream is indicative of where their passions lie, and too many of us suppress our passions in favor of the socially acceptable and mundane. Not every child can become a pop star or gold medalist, but there is nothing wrong with aspiring to be either.

When I was a teenager I wished to be involved with movie making. I didn’t have to be the star or the director, I would have settled being the personal assistant to the editor.

Fast forward to adulthood and I may not be in the movie industry as such, but my desire to make it in movies was particularly helpful and instructive. It made me aware that what I really wanted was to make a difference. Just like the movies I watched as a child made a difference to me, I wanted to find a career that would allow me to inspire others.

That’s why I am completely at odds with the academic that spoke against allowing children to dream big:

Focusing on sporting success is a waste of time because ‘very, very few children’ are going to make it, an academic has said.

Ellis Cashmore, a professor of culture, media and sport at Staffordshire University, says there is little proof that the Olympic Games create any kind of meaningful sporting legacy.

And he believes it is high time parents realised children are more likely to make the finals of shows like The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent than become sporting heroes of any sort.

‘We shouldn’t be trying to channel all of our energy into this pursuit of excellence in sports when very, very few children are going to succeed at any kind of level at all,’ he said.

‘My answer to parents who tell me their child might become a leading footballer or athlete is that they are putting them at risk of serious injury or closer to the world of performance-enhancing drugs.

‘I ask them: “Are you happy about that?” and they say: “It won’t happen to my child”.

‘To which I reply: “But it goes with the territory”. The cheats are very often those at the top.

Ellis Cashmore says there is little proof that the Olympic Games create any kind of meaningful sporting legacy

‘Do we want to churn out one-dimensional characters who leave no stone unturned in pursuit of excellence?’

 

Click on the link to read The Snow Day Song that Has Gone Viral (Video)

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Click on the link to read Should Teachers be Able to Tell People they Are Bad Parents?

Click on the link to read Loving Parents Are Allowed to Take Some Time Out

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Posted in Parenting | 1 Comment »

Hitchens: Dyslexia is NOT a Disease. It is an Excuse For Bad Teachers!

March 2, 2014

 

dyslexia

While I cannot comment on a report that claims there is no easy definition for dyslexia, I do agree that learning difficulties and ADHD labels have been helpful to poor teachers looking for an excuse.

Mr Hitchens has gone a lot further than I would, but the fact that many teachers rely on labels such as dyslexia to avoid full responsibility for a child’s lack of progress is hard to dispute:

I doubt there has ever been a society so easily fooled by pseudo-science and quackery as ours is. Millions of healthy people take happy pills that  do them obvious harm, and are increasingly correlated with inexplicable suicide and worse.

Legions of healthy children are drugged into numbness because they fidget during  boring lessons, and countless people are persuaded that they or their children suffer from  a supposed disease called ‘dyslexia’, even though there is no evidence at all that it exists.

A few weeks ago I rejoiced at the first major cracks in this great towering dam of lies. Dr Richard Saul brought out his courageous and overdue book, ADHD Does Not Exist.

I also urge everyone to read James Davies’s book Cracked, on the inflated claims of psychiatry since it sold its soul to the pill-makers.

Now comes The Dyslexia Debate, published yesterday, a rigorous study of this alleged ailment by two distinguished academics – Professor Julian  Elliott of Durham University, and Professor Elena Grigorenko of Yale University.

Their book makes several points. There is no clear definition of what ‘dyslexia’ is. There is no objective diagnosis of it. Nobody can agree on how many people suffer from it. The widespread belief that it is linked with high intelligence does not stand up to analysis.

And, as Parliament’s Select Committee on Science and Technology said in 2009: ‘There is no convincing evidence  that if a child with dyslexia is not labelled as dyslexic, but receives full support for his or her reading difficulty, that the child will do any worse than a child who is labelled dyslexic and then receives special help.’

 This is because both are given exactly the same treatment. But as the book’s authors say: ‘Being labelled dyslexic can be perceived as desirable for many reasons.’ These include extra resources and extra time in exams. And then there’s the hope that it will ‘reduce the shame and embarrassment that are often the consequence of literacy difficulties. It may help exculpate the child, parents and teachers from any perceived sense of responsibility’.

I think that last point is the decisive one and the reason for the beetroot-faced fury that greets any critic of ‘dyslexia’ (and will probably greet this book and article). If it’s really a disease, it’s nobody’s fault. But it is somebody’s fault. For the book also describes the furious resistance, among teachers,  to proven methods of teaching children to read. Such methods have been advocated by  experts since Rudolf Flesch wrote his devastating book Why Johnny Can’t Read almost 60 years ago.

There may well be a small number of children who have physical problems that stop them learning to read. The invention of ‘dyslexia’ does nothing to help them. It means they are uselessly lumped in with millions of others who have simply been badly taught.

It also does nothing for  that great majority of poor readers. They are robbed of one of life’s great pleasures and essential skills.

What they need, what we all need, is proper old-fashioned teaching, and who cares if the silly teachers think it is ‘authoritarian’? That’s what teaching is.

Click on the link to read my post on Valuable Tips for Teaching Children With Autism
Click on the link to read my post on Autistic Boy Gives an Inspiring Graduation Speech

Click on the link to read my post on Girl Banned from Museum because Her Wheelchair May Dirty Their Carpet

Click on the link to read my post on Disabled Children: A Missed Opportunity for Us All

Click on the link to read my post on Meet the 14-Year-Old on his Way to Becoming a Nobel Prize Winner (Video)

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Posted in ADHD, Children with Disabilities | 4 Comments »

5 Reasons Why It’s Healthy to Encourage Children to Play

March 1, 2014

 

play

Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, Katie Hurley, lists 5 reasons why play is beneficial for children:

1. Stress relief:

Play provides an opportunity for young children to process and work through the negative emotions they encounter throughout the day. Being a kid might seem like all fun and games, and perhaps their “problems” seem insignificant at times, but they do encounter stress along the way. heir problems feel big and overwhelming to them.

Children work through all kinds of emotions when engrossed in unstructured play. They might start out feeling stressed, but once lost in a world of imagination, they gradually let go of their stress and restore a sense of calm.

2. Emotional regulation:

Parents often ask me how to teach their children the art of emotional regulation. Little kids tend to have very big feelings and they often react before they have time to even process the event that triggered the feelings.

Through play, children learn to control their impulses and work through their emotions. They learn to find the triggers and problem-solve potential solutions.

3. Better social interaction skills:

Unstructured group play is the best way to let kids work on social interaction skills. When engrossed in group play, kids have to learn how to cooperate, resolve conflicts, empathize with others, and relate to peers.

4. Promotes creative problem-solving:

You can memorize answers to math questions (and you can even memorize strategies to solve difficult math problems), but you can’t memorize ways to solve real-life problems. What if a puzzle piece goes missing? What if another child is left out of a group? What if the tower just won’t stay up?

Children face a variety of problems each day, and these problems vary by age and stage. They have to learn how to step back and evaluate a situation before giving up or becoming hysterical. They have to learn how to think outside of the box. And that is something they can learn through the power of play.

5. Promotes learning:

The great irony of increasing academic pressure at the expense of unstructured play is that play actually promotes learning. Have you ever watched kids dump out a recycling bin and build something from nothing just because they felt like it? It takes planning, creative thinking, cooperation and resourcefulness to transform a bunch of old cardboard into a monster truck show, you know.

Play is the most natural learning style for children. They learn from play from the very first moment they shove wooden blocks into their mouths and they continue to learn through more advanced play as they grow.

So go ahead and say no to that party this weekend, speak up when the academics become overwhelming and start cutting back on those extracurricular activities. Happier, and less stressful, days are ahead for children. All you have to do is let them play.

 

Click on the link to read Allowing Children to Stand Out From the Pack

Click on the link to read Hilarious Examples of Kids Telling It As It Is

Click on the link to read Kids Can Operate an iPad but Can’t Tie their Shoelaces

Click on the link to read What is the Difference Between Over-Praising Children and Lying to Them?

Click on the link to read The Skills Kids Can Learn from Traditional Board Games

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Posted in Child Development | 3 Comments »

Primary School Teacher Catches Herself in the Act (Video)

February 27, 2014

 

I always appreciate it when a school community comes to the defense of a disgraced teacher.

It is important for us to understand that good teachers often make bad mistakes, just like good stockbrokers and company executives do. But bad mistakes in every sphere often leads to a termination of contract, no matter how much that person was regarded or liked.

Here, we have a odd case of a teacher filming herself taunting an autistic child who is stuck in a chair. This would have to be one of the most bizarre ways of getting caught being completely unprofessional:

A PRIMARY school teacher who used her mobile phone to record a 10-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome as he struggled to free himself from a chair may be fired.

Nicole McVey, who teaches the fifth grade at Oaktree Elementary School in Goodrich, Michigan, is heard mocking the youngster, asking him, “Wanna be tasered?”

Even the school principal Michael Ellis gets in on the act, telling the child: “It’s not really an emergency in their book,” after Ms McVey states that maintenance is on the way.

According to the New York Daily News, Ms McVey then emailed the incriminating video to school colleagues — presumably thinking they would find it funny — who forwarded it to school administrators.

Mr Ellis has since resigned and there are now calls for Ms McVey to be sacked. But the teacher still has the support of some parents and the incident has divided the local community.

“You hear of bullying by other students and other kids in class … but I have never had a case with teachers and administrators bullying,” the boy’s family lawyer, Patrick Greenfelder, told the New York Daily News.

Mr Greenfelder also revealed the family may take civil action against the school.

Goodrich School Board Superintendent Scott Bogner told ABC 12 that an investigation into the incident was under way.

 

Click on the link to read An Example of Teacher Sanctioned Torture at its Worst

Click on the link to read What if she were a Man?

Click on the link to read Teacher Allegedly Published the Grades of her Students by Writing on their Foreheads

Click on the link to read You Can’t Foster Tolerance With Racist Teachers

Click on the link to read The Teacher that Defended Hitler and Child Abuse and Advocated Porn

 

 

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Posted in Professional Conduct | 3 Comments »

Father Builds his Son the Coolest Desk Ever! (Video)

February 26, 2014

 

desk

 

I love it when parents build on the interests and imagination of their children. I wish I could build something like this for my children.

 

 

Click on the link to read The Meaning of Being a Father (Video)

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Click on the link to read Look What This Father Designed for His Son (Photos)

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Posted in Parenting | Leave a Comment »

Let’s See if you Can Work Out Why This Teacher was Suspended

February 25, 2014

 

kelly mascio

A teacher is suspended after she found two 5-year-old students in the bathroom naked claiming that they were “having sex” with one another.

What did the teacher do wrong you may ask.

Did she fail to alert the Principal?

No. She did that straight away.

Well then, what did she get suspended for?

Your guess is as good as mine:

A kindergarten teacher has been suspended from her job after two of her students were found ‘having sex’ while naked in her classroom’s bathroom.

Kelly Mascio, who has been teaching for more than 15 years in Mullica Township, New Jersey, has been suspended with pay since the incident on September 30.

According to a police report, Mascio found the two five-year-olds – a boy and girl – naked in her in-classroom bathroom. They told her they were ‘having sex.’

Mascio immediately reported the incident to Principal Matthew Mazzoni, who in turn advised the Police Department and the state Department of Youth and Family Services.The teacher was immediately suspended, while police investigated the case.

 

Click on the link to read Why Healthy Eating Laws in Schools Don’t Work

Click on the link to read You Can’t Have Your Lunch and Eat it Too

Click on the link to read How Many Teachers Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb? (Part 1)

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Posted in School Rules | 5 Comments »

Allowing Children to Stand Out From the Pack

February 24, 2014

 

cell

Not everyone can be a leader.

In every community there are natural leaders and people more comfortable with following. That doesn’t mean that the followers are blind. Their mission is to find the right person or persons to follow.

And even within the system of leaders and followers, it is vital for all concerned to realise that they all have unique gifts and characteristics which they need to harness, even at the cost of seeming different.

But people don’t like being different. They feel it makes them stand out in a negative way and it reduces their opportunities for gaining respect and acceptance from their peers.

In the classroom this is depicted by the academically gifted student who tones down their effort levels so as not to stand out. Commonly classified as a form of peer pressure, it makes children feel like they need to be seen to have the same tastes in movies, clothes, songs and interests as the pack, just to fit in.

I look at the picture above and I feel sad that doing something different looks odd or uncomfortable. Surely, as teachers, we should be working towards creating a classroom environment where each child is made aware of their unique skills and qualities and is able to express themselves without risk of excommunication.

 

Click on the link to read Hilarious Examples of Kids Telling It As It Is

Click on the link to read Kids Can Operate an iPad but Can’t Tie their Shoelaces

Click on the link to read What is the Difference Between Over-Praising Children and Lying to Them?

Click on the link to read The Skills Kids Can Learn from Traditional Board Games

Click on the link to read Our Impressionable Children are Desperately Looking for Positive Rolemodels

 

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Posted in Child Development | Leave a Comment »

Kids and Celebrities: A Reality Check

February 23, 2014

charlotte dawson

“Academy Award winning actors have it all.”

“I’d die to become a TV star.”

“That sports star has it all. Money, a gorgeous partner, a mansion …”

“I’d be so happy if I had that model’s looks.”

 

Our children grow up believing that fame and fortune comes without its price. That the celebrities adorning their bedroom walls are the definition of happiness and that being well known equates to being well liked.

It’s all a lie.

Unfortunately, the events of the past month prove how false this theory is. First there was the giant of an actor, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, whose potential for further groundbreaking performances was destroyed at the hands of a drug addiction.

This morning I heard the sad news of the death of local model and television star, Charlotte Dawson. Apparently, she died as a result of debilitating chronic depression which she had experienced for some time.

Our celebrities are human. They make mistakes, they have bad habits and they have their ups and downs like we all do.

Instead of setting children up to believing that happiness lies in a bank balance or a golden statue, let’s show them how they can find some real happiness for themselves.

 

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Click on the link to read The Perfect Example of Courage and Self-Respect

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Posted in Rolemodels | Leave a Comment »

Five Great Technology Tools for the English classroom

February 20, 2014

technology in the classroom

 

Courtesy of English teacher, Sarah Findlater:

 

Google Drive

Google Drive is a free online storage cloud that has Google’s version of Word, Powerpoint and Excel built into it. It allows students to create documents for free on the go. They can access and edit these documents on a tablet device or computer from various locations with their Google account login. They can share the documents they are working on with other students and can even work in one document at the same time to co-create pieces of work. They can also share the document with their teachers while they work or once they’ve finished to get instant feedback.

Teachers can help students with the creative writing process by getting them to share their stories as they write so you can feedback live without stopping their creative flow. You can give them quick and easy targets through the chat facility or highlight specific sections and create a comment – they have to respond to these otherwise the comment alert won’t disappear. You could also get students to co-create a presentation with one another on an element of the social or historical context of a text you’re studying, for example. Once finished, they can share the document with you, close down their computers and come up one at a time and simply click on their presentation now housed in your drive for instant feedback.

Edmodo

Edmodo is a free social learning platform for students, teachers and parents. It looks a little bit like Facebook so it is a familiar format for students to use. But before you run for the hills, it is very different to Facebook in that it’s completely controlled by the teacher and specifically designed for educational purposes – one of my classes has affectionately named it “Fakebook”. It has a shared timeline as a homepage where you and your students can interact and you can allow students to interact with one another, if you wish. Both teachers and students have a library where they can store documents and share them with others if they want to. The teacher can set assignments, students hand in assignments and teachers feedback on the work all within Edmodo. Two particularly useful functions are the quizzes and polls, and there’s also a built-in grade book that houses your teacher-assessed grades and quiz results for each student.

It really is a very useful all-round tool. You could consider saving essential documents – such as mark schemes, poems being studied and teaching presentations – in the class library to give students easy access to these at any time. You could also post photos of classwork completed by groups of students or individuals so all the students can see it for best practice. You could schedule weekly spelling tests – set as multiple choice quizzes – through Edmondo which will automatically collate the results so you can easily see trends within the class’s performance.

Screen casting

There a loads of tools out there that capture your computer or device screen and allow you to record your voice while you do so. Two that are often used are ScreenR which is free and Explain Everything, which is quite cheap. The idea is that you can take a picture of your computer or device screen and then set your voice against the website or pre-prepared powerpoint. If you collate these in one place, you have a bank of instructional videos.

A simple way to use this tool is to create short instructional videos to help your students study independently or revise a topic. For instance, you might create clips outlining different writing styles or perhaps your team can work together to create clips on themes you all think are important. You could get students involved and ask them to prepare a short videos explaining poems that you have been studying as a revision tool.

YouTube

One way to collate the videos created by a screencast tool is to start a YouTube channel and upload them all there. This is simply your own YouTube home page – you can style the background, upload profile information and follow other channels of interest. You can also create playlists within your channel to organise videos into topics and allow students to find them easily. If creating your own videos is not for you then you can create playlists of videos that are already out there that relate to the topics you are studying.

What about creating a channel for your department? Create a playlist for each topic on your curriculum map from myths and legends to war poetry and creative writing. All you would need to do is to drop in videos of your choice. The videos could be created by your students, staff or just found from educational sources around the web. The clips could help students get more from the topic or encourage them to read and research around the subject – a wonderful resource for years to come that you can regularly update.

Blogging

There are many blogging platforms around but the two that are most popular are WordPress and Blogger. If you’re looking for the easier of the two then Blogger from Google is the one. If you want a more sophisticated platform then WordPress is probably a better choice. A basic blog allows you to have a rolling front page of updating posts and static pages accessed via tabs, often along the top of the page. It is a great record of the year for the students to look back over.

Get your students to create their own blogs and use them as digital portfolios for the year, posting up their best work. Getting feedback from a real audience as well as peers, parents and teachers is a great opportunity for development. How about creating a blog for your class? You could update the main page with homework tasks, recommended reading and updates from your classroom. Try creating a post with a task or question based on the topic you’re studying and get the students to use the comments facility to respond. They could even extend their answers by responding to one another’s comments. You could use the blog as a record of lessons by uploading presentations and photos. If a student is ever absent, this is an invaluable tool to enable them to keep up.

 

Click on the link to read 5 Great Spelling Apps for Tablets and Smartphones

Click on the link to read Are Educators Being Conned by the i-Pad?

Click on the link to read The Best Phonics Apps for iPads

Click on the link to read Should Teachers be able to Text Students?

Click on the link to read 50 Ways To Use Skype In Your Classroom

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Posted in Technology in the Classroom | 1 Comment »

Finally, a Step Forward in Education

February 19, 2014

pyne

I have been saying over and over again that something has to be done about the poor quality of teacher training. I have written to education ministers and tried to sell the message through this site, that improved teacher training was a must. Even though I was certain that an overhaul of our teacher training courses would bring immediate results, I felt that no politician would have the courage to even look at this area, let alone actively take the project on.

I am overjoyed to be proven wrong:

Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne will announce on Wednesday a far-reaching review into teacher training in a bid to make education degrees less ”faddish” and ”ideological”.

Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Greg Craven – a vocal opponent of minimum entry scores for teaching degrees – will chair an eight-member advisory panel to report to Mr Pyne by the middle of this year.

An eight-member ministerial advisory group will report by the middle of the year on how education degrees at universities can better prepare new teachers.

“There is absolutely no reason at all why Australia, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world … shouldn’t have the best teacher training in the world,” Mr Pyne told reporters in Adelaide on Wednesday.

“I want it to be more practical, I want them to have better experiences in the classroom rather than in universities and I want it to be less theoretical.”

Mr Pyne said the only way the federal government could influence teacher quality was by looking at university courses.

He suggested the standard was too low because very few people failed teaching degrees.

But he said imposing minimum entry scores for teaching degrees was a “blunt instrument” that would not guarantee quality.

Instead he wants the advisory body to have a particular focus on in-classroom training.

“My instinct is that the more a teacher is in the classroom learning on the job about how to teach people how to count and to read, the better,” he said.

Amen to that!

Click on the link to read my post Tips For New Teachers from Experienced Teachers

Click on the link to read, ‘Teachers Trained Very Well to Teach Very Poorly‘

Click on the link to read my post 25 Characteristics of a Successful Teacher

Click on the link to read my post 10 Important Tips for New Teachers

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Posted in Teacher Training | 3 Comments »

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