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Education!

This is very cool.

U-overhaul

I recently read 9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn at http://blogs.yis.ac.jp/beyondlaptops/essential-readings/

Leo Babuata, the author, had me hooked almost immediately by comparing his preparation for the newspaper industry to the irrelevancy of the modern school system and its insistence on teaching old-fashioned ideas and methodology.

Next, I completely agreed with his choice (and the position) for the first skill a student should learn: asking questions.  As I recently highlighted here and in my class presentation, I believe that healthy skepticism is crucial to learning.  Sure, kids already naturally do this but I like Babuata's concept of asking them questions in return, in the style of Socrates, so that they can have their curiosity piqued and then learn from themselves.

Also, Babuata mentioned his frustration with 'unschooling' after students are taught incorrectly.  I too find it incredibly inefficient to reteach subjects like history ("Yes, I know you heard that George Washington cut down his father's cherry tree and then refused to lie about it, but that was a patently false mythology granted to him long after his death by his less-than-forthright biographer.").  Or, here in Korea, I find myself constantly retraining students' pronunciation because their middle school teachers drove, rammed, and jack-hammered the incorrect usage into their spongy brains.

I guess the word of the day is: overhaul

Re:mix

How can you not recommend a film like Everything is a Remix?  It's well made, it backs up every argument with footnotes and references in the form of real movie clips, interviews, and photos (all attributed, and wisely so), and it makes reasonable points.  Find the full documentary here: http://everythingisaremix.info

Part Four is specifically interesting to me because it covers everything from evolution to loss aversion, and this progression leads us to wonder: what is not a copy?  After all, we're all copies of the original and our ideas, of course, will not only be similar but sometimes so similar that we have ask if this is "copying" or subconscious referencing or merely showing appreciation through mimicry.

My take on this is (and it wasn't mentioned in the video so I'm not stealing!) is that not only are we territorial about our work but we also have a form of Protestant Work Ethic guilt (can be shortened to PEW, that stinks) because we believe that hard work is its own reward and that laziness is a form of sin (and here we can bring the Catholics in on the argument too, with their concept of the deadly sin called 'Sloth').

Here's the thing and the thing is here: minus the religious connection, I agree.  If you copy and paste someone else's writing or programming, that is indeed lazy and we should frown upon it.  You should have to work to have success.  You should have to mine your deepest creative impulses for new thought.  But (and like a Kardashian, this is a big BUTT), if you can improve on an existing model while also giving credit to the original idea, that is great!  That is evolution!  Adaptation!  So, if you follow both steps, then I say, live long and prosper!

Lesson Learned

Teaching about conspiracies is the most fun I can have in a professional setting.  Like my class presentation, I love to challenge my adult students to think critically about historical events, especially when those events are connected in the zeitgeist with an erroneous claim that a secret cloak and dagger government organization planned the tragic event (they're always tragic, with the exception of the moon landing conspiracy).

Certainly, there are plenty of real evil government conspiracies in recent history (injecting blacks with syphilis, experimenting with acid on unwitting volunteers in the military, and basically everything that the CIA did in Central and South America).  But somehow those events are just not interesting enough to capture the anger and imagination of the collective tin-hatters out there.

As I mentioned before, critical thinking and healthy skepticism are crucial tools for young learners, and I'm looking for better ways to teach these ideas to them.

Copyrights and Wrongs

Online content, like centuries of content before it, continues to be a conundrum when it comes to ownership.  How many words strung together, or notes in a tune, or frames in a set of pictures constitute something unique and intact and most importantly: proprietary.

When it comes to this issue, I take a wide berth around any possible dangers.  Basically, this means that I credit all of the resources that I use directly to furnish my work and I never plagiarize.  I think this is a wise approach to the issue, however it's never that easy, is it?

There seems to be a thin line between being inspired by something and just ripping it off for your own purposes.  Most of the classic rock from the '70s was apparently stolen from minority blues artists who never were compensated for their work. But does this mean that Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones are thieves? Or that they somehow don't deserve the credit and fame they achieved?
If I am inspired by Monet to paint blurry, oddly colored water lilies, how much of that idea is stolen and how much credit does a long dead artist deserve?

I don't think there are a lot of easy answers to these questions but, in my case, better safe than sorry!

The Gift of the Presentation

Have you ever made the illogical leap from a point about economics to a joke about ancient fertility rituals?  That's what it's like to be in my head.  I assume that if we're discussing the relationship between the reward (the carrot) and the obstacle preventing us from the reward (the stick), you will follow my reasoning to the Easter bunny and then down the rabbit hole to the Catholic takeover of the Easter holiday from the pagans who used the symbols of eggs and large-eared rodents to represent the arrival of Spring.

Yes, this has led to some awkward moments at parties and yes, I'm also surprised that I convinced a beautiful young woman to marry me.

The point is that I have to be able to convey my thoughts and points more clearly and rationally and this is especially true when giving presentations.  Luckily, with modern aids like Prezi, I can readily connect my ideas because they are basically being connected for me.  I'm forced to organize because the program helps me present clearly and concisely and since it also has the qualities of a canvas, I feel as though I can be creative as well.

So, I took a crack at it for the first time and came up with a way to present myself as a prospective teacher.  Here it is: http://prezi.com/gbxfufzcrvnk/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated!

Outside the School Box

As an educator in Korea, I am constantly frustrated by my own limitations as a teacher, but I'm even more exasperated by undoing the damage done to my students by teachers who came before me.  While a complete overhaul of the Korean education system might not happen before the apocalypse, I may not be too flummoxed to turn things around by implementing more critical thinking into my curricula.

You see, the Confucian ideal is not dead here, and an unfortunate aspect of education here is simply: listen and apply.  The instructors pass on whatever knowledge they have gleaned and the students absorb and regurgitate.  It is a very linear way of teaching, not to mention lazy, and I refuse to fall into the same trap.  But how can I forge ahead and stay organized?

Rote memorization of text or numerals has been shown again and again to be an incredibly ineffective way to educate, and students find it not only a useless method, but a damaging way of inflicting stress on otherwise prime minds.

Critical thinking and problem solving is the way forward in education in Korea, and in the world.  These are the tools of future innovation since they force teachers to loosen the grip on the hammer and allow the students to learn from an accidental thumbnail strike.  They open up the possibility for creativity but more importantly they extend the gift of failure.  For every synapse that gets fired on a new and different, but ultimately wrong pathway, there is a lesson learned.

For me, the struggle involves taking a step back, forfeiting a modicum of control and letting students find their independence but I also require a set of tools that I don't often use: methods of teaching better critical thinking and problem solving that include a technological interface. 

These are the points that I believe to be the most important in my classes and these are also the points that I most need to improve.