In a post highlighting one way charter schools can boost student performance even in public schools, the author of A School Yard Blog mentions her essay Exiting. Although she touts it for descriptions of parents, I found it most interesting for its description of students, particularly how they react to "learner-centered" teaching where students are expected to work together in groups to understand a subject. This results in two great advantages: students are able to describe and defend how they arrived at an answer, and they learn to work with little or no outside direction from an imposed authority figure. Both of these skills are important to succeed in any high-value job, but more importantly they are critical to being a functioning citizen of a democracy.
The essay itself is a commitment, being 49 pages and not the usual two paragraph blog-entry length, but I found myself sucked in by the writing, especially the journal entries and quotes from students. I was 30 pages in before I knew it. Well worth an hour of your time. It reminded me of ideas from Teaching as a Subversive Activity, but without the strong political bias.
Posted by awm at January 10, 2004 01:21 PM