So after reading E. D. Hirsch, Deborah Meier, Diane Ravich, Nel Noddings, President Obama’s speech and Robert Pirsig, the students of Modern Educational Theory have written their first draft of their vision of what school should be. These are first passes at these ideas, and these are purpose statements that will evolve over the course of the year. Here was the structure of the assignment:
We, at this point, looked at several different views of education, from Deborah Meier’s vision of democratic education, to Robert Pirsig’s “Church of Reason,” to Diane Ravitch and E. D. Hirsch’s views of core knowledge, to Nel Nodding’s ethic of care, to President Obama’s speech on the first day of school.
Now, it is your time to take your stand.
You are to write a two page position paper creating your vision of what school should be.
Your paper should consider the following points:
- Clearly define your vision of school:
- What is its purpose?
- Why is it good for the individual?
- Why is it good for sociery?
- What does your vision of school value? Prioritize?
- Given this vision of school — what differences would you see in the structure of school when compared to a “traditional” school?
We read each other’s papers and you can see the comments beginning to evolve. Their current assignment is this:
Pick two essays (try to pick ones that haven’t been done that much yet) and ask two hard questions of the vision expressed.
(For example, if someone speaks deeply about student choice in learning, a question may be — “How will a young student know what they love without exposure to the ideas?”)
Take the best part of the vision expressed and ask the author — ‘What is the worst consequence of your best idea?’ The goal is for all of us to understand that there are no perfect ideas in education, and also to allow the the author to think about what problems could arise in their vision and how they might mitigate (lessen, deal with) some of them.
I’m really thrilled with much of the thoughtfulness that the kids display in the essays. It is, obviously, clear that the kids have been at SLA for years, but I don’t think that’s their only vision of what school can be — which is important to me. The kids have their own thoughts, and I’m really interested to see how these visions continue to evolve.
So… please, feel free to comment on their essays (commenting is moderated because of spam, but I’ll approve them, I promise!)
