In a message dated 1/15/00 4:33:01 AM Eastern Standard Time,
cfchrist@earthlink.net writes:
<< i am curious how many other individuals out there are finding out
that the accepted method of education >>
Chuck:
I am a career Educator and Counselor in the public schools--ready to retire
in about 2 1/2 years. I realized in my first year of teaching that the old
standard "lecture" format was only suited to part of the students. Back in
those days, we didn't really know anything about "Learning styles"--most new
teachers, like myself mimicked teachers we had observed inthe past. In my
case, I happened to have been one of those students who had a terrible time
learning in the traditional format on the one hand, and was fortunate enough
on the other hand, to (1) have survived in spite of the system, and (2) to
have NOT had student teaching which would have inducted me more firmly into
tradition.
So, appearing before my first class on that first day, without having had a
student teaching class, forced me to be more creative, I think. Then there
was the "turning point"--that moment that flashes brightly as a significant
"aha" in one's life. It occured, of all things, in a movie of the times:
"To Sir, With Love", when the teacher, also thrust before a non-learning
group of students, and with no prior teaching training, walked over to the
garbage can and dropped the classroom texts into the garbage can. That
moment almost freed me up to be more creative in trying to reach students,
and that was the point that emphasized to me that there were many ways that
students learn and that rather than waiting for them to come to us, we should
go to them.
Now we have significant research, largely ignored by the teaching dogmatism,
that suggests that traditional schools reach approximately 40% of the
students, while 60% are predominant right-brain thinkers--hands on, show me,
let me do, type learners.
In 1981 I became a trendsetter when I established a Wilderness program here
in Tennessee, then a fairly unknown entity, to work with "high-risk" kids.
The effect was that in lieu of punishment, these kids were placed into a
format where they"lived" learning for a 4-day period of time (a llifetime to
a kid) in the backcountry, after a 10-week program that REQUIRED a parent to
be enrolled. We had outstanding success working with these kids, providing
life changing experiences for them through non-traditional means. I ran that
program for 17 years, many times garnering recognition, twice being named the
equivalent of "Tennessee Counselor of the Year" in view of the effectiveness
and uniqueness of the program. I still do some scaled down versions of the
program.
More recently, I have worked with a company that produces and sells a
"Portable Ropes Course", and in the training that we do, we spend some time
discussing the crucial importance of approaching a group of kids with
variance in teaching styles in mind, and use a number of hands-on, right
brain demonstrations to prove it. All to indicate to the trainees how
important the portable Ropes Course can be as a suppliment to learning.
I have often wondered, and placed proving it in my "maybe someday box", how
extremely unbalanced toward right-brain learning and thinking all those kids
sitting in Juvenile Court waiting rooms, Truancy review boards, and Special
Education classes, and those showing failing marks and sitting in Principal's
Offices, might be. It is these right-brainers whom I think are being left
out of the stream and flop and flounder.
That's my loose change!!
--David C.
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