Images From My Past

"Report cards were sent out recently and their issuance always serve as a reminder of the following situation from a couple of years ago and how destructive grades can be to a kid's motivation. "
This article took me back to my first year of teaching, 1979, and with it all the pain, anger and frustrations I felt then blistered up once more.
The title of the blog is, "Why Are You Crying? Your Grades?"
Reflection:
My first year of teaching.  I had a multi-grade 1-3.  A wonderful group that came together more as a family then a class.
Two boys in the grade that found reading very, very HARD!  Just after Christmas break, the light bulbs went on and they began to put things together.  At "level"? No.  But excited and happy about what they were doing. No doubt they would be on or above "level" next year.
April hits - the Iowa Basic Skills test time (Yup, that's what they were back then.)
Directions are read to the students: "It should take about 20–30 minutes to read the passages in this book and answer the 6 questions in the Answer Section. "  You may begin.
Story 1:

"Saturday is our day to clean, but Grandpa turns work into fun. We like to sing when we dust. We like to dance when we mop. We clean the car together. We do the wash together. We both wear our caps. When we are done, we hurry to the store. We shop for food. Grandpa lets me pick the fruits that I like best. We carry the food home. Grandpa tells stories while we walk. At night, our work is done. Friends come over. We cook dinner. We sing and dance. Saturday is our day to clean, but Grandpa turns work into fun!"

Now this may look like a simple passage to you but to those boys, motivated and excited, it was "the kiss of death".  They sat there for 20 long minutes silently crying (so as not to disturb the others).  All efforts to help them regain confidence that year failed.

I cry with them as I continue to cry for our children.  Whether it's grades or standard tests, we drain the excitement and motivation out of our children.  We have to stop putting them up to a systems yard stick.  Let them draw their own lines on the wall.

You can help put an end to it.  What to learn how? Become a member of NGGE or email me and I will show you.  Your students, your children and you will be much happier.

What do contemporary American Parents Want?

According to a post in the New York Times by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, they tend to want" their boys smart and their girls skinny".  Not happy?  Excited about learning?  Is it because parents tend to compare their child(ren) to their neighbors, friends, co-workers...?  Why must we burden children with our out-dated measuring stick.
At NGGE we want to allow each individual learner to have choices and take charge of who they hope to be.

Search Engines for Kids

When you ask kids, "What do you like to do most?" many will tell you about their latest learning portable learning device.

Our children begin to use these devices at a very early age.   It is important to  teach them safe and responsible. 

EmergingEdTech recently posted a story, "8 Safe Search Engines and Tools for Kid"

• KidzSearch  Powered by Google -Searched "How to use Pythagorean Theorem" (About 106,000 results (0.27 seconds)")  Good variety of materials to explore.
• Searchy Pants   Must register with name and email. Categorizes search by type of materials. (About 105,000 results (0.40 seconds)
• KidRex  Also Google powered.  Much like first site.  (About 105,000 results (0.29 seconds))
• KidsClick  Offers many good sites.  No results returned on the above search.
• Yahoo Kids    Did not find this kid safe as I could search for subjects not appropriate for young learners.
• Aga-Kids   Search by text or visual icons.  One result returned on above search.
• Mymunka  By subject or tag.  (About 276,000 results (2.87 seconds))

As I visited each I could see a difference in the sophistication of each search engine.  Check them out and comment back on which engine you like most and why.

Guiding and coaching our children as learners starts at "birth".  

This is what today's plans look like. It is the first of 15, all fairly much the same aimed to teach to the group.

 Here's the group:

This is the same information with the same objectives, meeting the same standards.

Which would you rather use as a learner?  Which would you rather create as an educator.
We are preparing to build the Universal Library for Learning.  Come and Join US.

THIS WEEK IN THE NEWS

This weeks edition of NGGE's paper:
Two articles are from edutopia, a site every educator (yes, that includes parents) who are interested in the direction of education in the 21st century.  
The first article, "The Role of PBL in Making the Shift to Common Core", shows how Project Based Learning (PBL) can support the Common Core Standards.  It is well known that NGGE supports the learner leading their education, not the standards.  Learners are not shy about challenging a teacher if the subject has no relevance to their learning.  Real-time, hands-on, collaborative problem solving such as PBL is such a powerful learning AND assessing tool.
The second article,  "An Unprecedented Opportunity for Educational Equity", points out what NGGE has been advocating for 2 years.   "The technological advances of online game-based instruction and the breakthroughs in neuroscience learning research bring us an unprecedented opportunity for achieving this equity and quality education nationally and internationally."  We have all the resources necessary to turn learning back over to the students, to support and mentor them as they forge their personal learning pathway.  However, these resources are scattered all over the world.  It takes much time and energy to pull the pieces together so they are organized and available to all learners.  That is the goal of NGGE and the "Universal Library for Learning".
Another article posted by Global Partnership for Education entitled "It Takes a Community to Learn" points out "250 million children – or around 40 % of all primary school age children in the world – either, never enroll in school, fail to make it to the fourth year of their education or, if they do manage this, are not learning to read even basic sentences." Schools are no longer today's learning environment, the world is.  And as such, it takes the world working together to support all learners.

Gaming Education: What stands in the way?

Who or what is standing in the way of changing education for the learners and using their tools to do it? Not the parents of today, and perhaps not the teachers either. It all comes back to the testing. As long as testing continues to lead learning, learning will continue to decline. But it doesn't have to be this way. NGGE.org supports John Holt 's concept of "unschooling".  Read this article from EmergingEdTech.
Next Generation Global Education believes the learner should drive his/her instruction by developing a Personalized Learning Plan that educators and parents can support, coach, mentor each to achieve their individual success.

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