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edmund_the_destroyer wrote (edited )

There's a writer Alfie Kohn that dives into this in great detail. He's not the most interesting writer, but his books are worth checking out if you can get them. There are talks of his on Youtube and such, and he's more engaging there. Short summary:

  • Grades and tests kill interest in learning.
  • Punishments and also rewards also kill interest in learning.
  • People of all ages, including kids, learn better in small collaborative groups instead of when one person stands in front and lectures.
  • People are more interested in learning when the topic applies to them. Learning fractions to help with cooking gets more attention than learning fractions as just abstract math. And so forth.
  • The best educational projects are as self-guided as impossible. Instead of "We will next study George Washington", how about, "How do you think we should decide who are the most important people in 18th century North America?" And go from there.
  • The best educational projects are cross-discipline. An example is having the class design a zoo. The students learn about square footage, budgets, logistics, marketing, animals, animal habitats and their moisture and temperature requirements, animal diets, feeding schedules, worker schedules, parking, and so forth.

Edit: This is all backed up by research, too. America's stronger emphasis on grades and standardized testing in the past 20 years, it's "traditional" and "back to basics" approach to education, is severely hurting kids' interest in learning and their retention of important information.

My kids attend a top-rated public school in our state, and sadly there is basically none of this there. There's a little of it in kindergarten and first grade, and that's it. I got interested in unschooling because my kids have top level grades but two of the four are indifferent to school and two of the four actively hate learning. I am likely to be a parent of four graduates 'with honors' that never read a book again in their lives. :(

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