Randoms
A friend of mine invited me to this pedagogy conference, and as an opening to the conference they showed a documentary about a "free school" in Albany that basically breaks the "structured" boundaries of most schools in todays society. There are no grades, no rules, no curriculum, and the kids are allowed to just "play" and direct their own learning. This may seem like a bogus idea to most of us, since, being raised in the generic school system, we think that there should be rules and structure, etc. However, maybe it is possible to learn without having the facts crammed down our throats.
These kids learn a sense of individuality at an early age, and more importantly, a sense of self - something the rest of us sometimes need to develop after we've exited the school system. It takes years to realise what it is we really want from life, and it sure as hell isnt easy to figure that out when you're in the momentum of the educational system - if you stop you'll get trampled.
A prof who was at this screening had an anecdote of the past year, where he experimented with a physics course that was not graded - and all evaluations were optional. To his surprise and the university's chagrin, the final exam produced results that were 20% higher than the mean of the previous year, which had been graded. The course was banned from the curriculum this year. I would have loved to have a course like that when i was in first year, and instead of getting a near fail, maybe i would have done better? :( This just goes to show how little support these alternative methods of teaching have within university circles. How many times have we all wished that a course wasn't graded, or there wasn't that much pressure to do well?
Maybe we're all losing track of the real reason we're doing all of this higher education - is it really to better ourselves and learn more or is it to climb higher up the ladder of societal hierarchy and SAY we're smarter and therefore be "better people"? I think the grading system has definitely rocketed out of control in the past years - i bet the leading cause of death of people our age is suicide....how wrong is that?
More about the free school here:
http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/
Anyway, the weekend was a very satisfying one, I picked up my guitar in the first time since i got here, and am currently trying to learn "Last dance" by Sarah McLachlan, its a cute little instrumental melody....my fingers are so raw right now, typing kind of hurts :S
Also went to parliament and made some sketches, one of the top of parliament and another of some statues of two women, proclaiming the independence of women as "persons", hehe kind of funny now but back in the day this was actually a point of contention. I also havent sketched in a long time, but one thing about ottawa is that it's a remarkably sketchable city- inspiration seems to come from a lot of places that certainly werent there in winnipeg. I thought i had lost any artistic ability when i was there because i just couldnt make any decent sketches for the life of me, but it turns out it was just sleeping. Maybe i've finally disproven the theory that artistic genius comes from discontent and misery! ;)
Only half kidding there....
These kids learn a sense of individuality at an early age, and more importantly, a sense of self - something the rest of us sometimes need to develop after we've exited the school system. It takes years to realise what it is we really want from life, and it sure as hell isnt easy to figure that out when you're in the momentum of the educational system - if you stop you'll get trampled.
A prof who was at this screening had an anecdote of the past year, where he experimented with a physics course that was not graded - and all evaluations were optional. To his surprise and the university's chagrin, the final exam produced results that were 20% higher than the mean of the previous year, which had been graded. The course was banned from the curriculum this year. I would have loved to have a course like that when i was in first year, and instead of getting a near fail, maybe i would have done better? :( This just goes to show how little support these alternative methods of teaching have within university circles. How many times have we all wished that a course wasn't graded, or there wasn't that much pressure to do well?
Maybe we're all losing track of the real reason we're doing all of this higher education - is it really to better ourselves and learn more or is it to climb higher up the ladder of societal hierarchy and SAY we're smarter and therefore be "better people"? I think the grading system has definitely rocketed out of control in the past years - i bet the leading cause of death of people our age is suicide....how wrong is that?
More about the free school here:
http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/
Anyway, the weekend was a very satisfying one, I picked up my guitar in the first time since i got here, and am currently trying to learn "Last dance" by Sarah McLachlan, its a cute little instrumental melody....my fingers are so raw right now, typing kind of hurts :S
Also went to parliament and made some sketches, one of the top of parliament and another of some statues of two women, proclaiming the independence of women as "persons", hehe kind of funny now but back in the day this was actually a point of contention. I also havent sketched in a long time, but one thing about ottawa is that it's a remarkably sketchable city- inspiration seems to come from a lot of places that certainly werent there in winnipeg. I thought i had lost any artistic ability when i was there because i just couldnt make any decent sketches for the life of me, but it turns out it was just sleeping. Maybe i've finally disproven the theory that artistic genius comes from discontent and misery! ;)
Only half kidding there....