Creativity and Curiosity
I can honestly say that the United States Department of Education uses textbooks to put a child's imagination and creativity in "chains". Textbooks are a crutch for teachers. Do you really think that the teachers themselves are learning from these books? Can these teachers really educate these children and these children retain the information required to pass standardized tests and beyond? The people who sit in Washington, D.C. making these lesson plans to hand out to educators are not thinking about what kind of learner a child is, rather they are thinking about how to get that child out of that classroom so that the next child can take his/her seat. I do not feel like they care if the child really learns the subject. The course curriculum can be altered to increase curiosity. I think that a study or survey should be done on students in each grade level, asking what they like most about each subject and what they would change about each subject. This is to get the students' input on how they feel the curriculum is affecting their learning abilities and how it should be changed. This gives students a voice in their education. The way an educator presents the information to the students can either grab their attention or put them to sleep. I believe that a child will have better retention with hands-on work rather than book work. As an educator, I feel that you must be enthusiastic about what you are teaching. Make the student feel excited to walk into that classroom Monday-Friday. Teachers can incorporate things that the students enjoy in everyday life such as using their smart phones, computers, music that they listen to, social sites, collaborative exercises, etc. I say social sites because Dr. Strange taught us in EDM310 to push the bar to see what we can do to make sure that child investigates what he/she wants to know. In my honest opinion, educators' hands are tied by the "red tape" of the school system. By "red tape" I mean the regulations that each teacher has to abide by among being employed by the school system. I can not list these rules because I do not know them as of yet, but from what I have been told by actual educators these rules hinder them from doing a lot of what they want to do in their classrooms. When I was in high school, there were certain field trips that we could not take, their were certain websites that we could not access because they were blocked, their were certain books that were not present in the library because the school system thought they were inappropriate for high school students. "Red Tape" is all around education and until we cut this red tape, the children are going to suffer.
I know that parents want the best for their children. They want the best lives and education for their little ones. The question is can educators really give these children a better education when they can not always release their own creativity?
No more red tape!
ReplyDeleteInteresting approach.