So if we are also the learners – what’s different?!
How do we learn? We don’t go somewhere and “learn” from 8:30 – 3:30. We read and process, consider, talk to our colleagues, try an experiment. That is not how schools are structured to work. We don’t read enough, we don’t discuss enough, we don’t talk (use our phones), or try new things.

What, then is a “learning day”? When does it happen? Where does it happen?

We can’t still have study hall fourth period, get out of class early to decorate for homecoming, or use the concept of Senior pass to do less that last year. Why do all students need to attend four years of high school?

We have to think outside the box and that means changing the structure. Our schools are too closely wedded to schools of the past in structure and organization.

Thanks for challenging us!

1 Novice

rigid adherence to rules
no discretional judgment

2 Advanced beginner

situational perception still limited
all aspects of work are treated separately and given equal importance

3 Competent

coping with crowdedness (multiple activity, information)
now partially sees action as part of longer term goals
conscious, deliberate planning

4 Proficient

holistic view of situation, rather than in terms of aspects
sees what is most important in a situation
uses maxims for guidance, meaning of maxims may vary according to situation

5 Expert

no longer reliant on rules, guidelines, maxims
intuitive grasp of situation, based on tacit knowledge
vision of what is possible

(Source: Wikipedia)

Is that “it”? I don’t know.

I did not say that I have superior intelligence. Rather, I offered a hypothetical that supposed it — merely for the purposes of the hypothetical.

Nor did I accuse anything of being a cult. Rather, I warned that that the way that many people talk about this stuff SOUNDS like a cult. I was underlining the importance of being more careful and specific in explaining of “getting it” really means.

Furthermore, I don’t think that I’ve ever answered something in such a forum with a simple “I don’t think so.” I actually have a very good history of explaining at length what I mean.

Your superior intelligence, etc, is not displayed when you respond with “I don’t think so” (or worse, “it’s a cult!”) but fail to either explain your reasons or engage with positions like Kobus van Wyk’s.

Districts and State Boards of Education are concerned about integrity of education and “biases” which naturally go undetected by younger children. They are concerned about what is “out there” on the world wide web (and they are also concerned about hidden agendas “lurking in our own halls” where teachers who do away with textbook delivery of knowledge may push their own bias a little too far or too hard through the sites they choose as well as those they ignore.) Could that be one reason why there is so much talk in some states about control over state textbooks, and only using textbooks that are approved, rather than going 100% to electronic means of learning? Whoever controls the information controls the minds and eventually the futures of the next generation. Maybe they are the ones who reeeeally “get it” and they are reeeally afraid of it for that very reason.

So here’s my question:

What if someone understands what you mean, or what whomever else else means, but doesn’t agree?

How often do people think that just because someone does not agree with them that that they don’t understand them, as though merely understanding is the best possible argument — an ironclad and totally persuasive one that?

What is see here are a bunch of ideas, some more specific than others — none really worked out in terms of ultimate aims, immediate pedagogy and implications for the nature of schooling — without anyone considering that others might find the vision less compelling than more traditional practices.