The Book Of Learning And Forgetting

The Book of Learning and Forgetting
Frank Smith
Teachers College Press 1998

If pointless and time-consuming programs, drills, and tests were taken away, teachers could be free to get on with the kinds of activity that promote permanent and worthwhile learning. They could bring students into constant contact with people from whom they can learn, inside the classroom and outside. Teachers who can’t do their job without instructional procedures, materials, and goals designed by people who have no contact with their students are in the wrong occupation and should perhaps be called technicians rather than teachers.

An unremitting school experience of competitiveness, apprehension, and triviality doesn’t strengthen students for future trials and adversity. The people best able to survive sudden starvation are those who have been well fed, not starved for most of their life.

Schools liberated from the official theory of learning would not be standardized. They’d come in a variety of guises. The essence of any liberated school is that it would be a community and not a hierarchy of principal, teachers, support staff, and students. Liberated schools would lack mindless exercises, punitive tests, discrimination, segregation, pointless competition, labeling of individuals, restrictive timetables, and public/private humiliation of teachers and students.

There would be many interesting activities to engage in, from anthropology to zoology. Schools would be full of clubs, interest groups, and talent workshops that maximized highest levels of participation. Not all schools would attempt to do the same things. Schools would vary the way individuals vary.

A liberated school might be organized like a good professional conference. There is plenty going on – speakers, displays, discussions, excursions, and cultural events. There are also constant possibilities for escape, for rest, reflection, conversation, reading and writing. There are quiet corners; facilities for exercise; access to food, drink, and bathrooms; and opportunities for self and social expression, with no coercion or evaluation. A liberated school would be a civilized experience, in other words, different perhaps for every participant but rewarding and satisfying for all.

Susan Ohanian's Bad Dream About Our Immediate Future

Teacher Notification of CCSS Pre-Test Unauthorized Activity

TO: NH Kindergarten Teacher 63M42

FROM: US Department of Education, Bill and Melinda Gates Substation

CC: Business Roundtable
National Governors Association
Council of Chief State School Officers
US Chamber of Commerce
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Stanford Graduate School of Education
American Federation of Teachers, CCSS Branch
National Education Association, CCSS Tributory
National PTA, CCSS Bureau
New York Times Editorial
Pearson Products and Services

RE: Appropriate Classroom Pre-Common Core Test Materials File No. 28-63-0094-16, QZ18-CCSS, Sec. 14

It has come to the attention of the US Department of Education, Bill and Melinda Gates Substation that there has been recent unauthorized activity preceding the above referenced Common Core test. You have been identified as the for-hire person responsible for the classroom containing the following unauthorized materials

• construction blocks;
• finger paints and paper;
• sand table;
• play house with kitchen utensils and costumes;
• piano;
• improper ratio of fiction and non-fiction books. (See Guidelines 723.94A)

Be aware that "Live free or die" does not mean you may endanger your students' future as workers in the Global Economy by exposing them to unauthorized materials.

Every public school classroom must be held in sacred trust to ensure our nation's success in the competitive Global Economy.

Through the work of our research partners and poll results showing the skills most in demand from the Fortune 500, the US Department of Education, Bill and Melinda Gates Substation has determined that the activities resulting from these materials is in violation of Part 276, of the CCSS Pre-Test Plan for Preparing Workers for the Global Economy, Sections 218.27634 to 218.27686 of the CCSS Pre-Test Compiled Laws annotated.

We find the activities resulting from such materials are inherently hazardous to preparing children for their futures in the Global Economy and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist, removing all unauthorized materials from this location and to restore your classroom to a globally competitive work-ready condition.

All restoration work shall be completed within 48 hours, 16 minutes. Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff.

Failure to comply with this request, or any further unauthorized activity on the site, will result in this case being referred immediately for Elevated Enforcement Action. (See your union contract, Subsection 792, p. 53,486.)

We anticipate your full cooperation in this matter.

Courtesy of www.susanohanian.org
Don't let this possible future become our reality.
Get Up Stand Up

This Is Not A Happy Meal And It Ain't About Handwriting

No, this really isn't a Happy Meal but it is the work of happy fingers. It is the artistry of a gifted knitter, coordinating needles and yarn, using math infused patterns to create a yummy tableau.

Last week the NYT ran an article on fingers and brains. Immediately, bloggers began bemoaning the loss of cursive, Zaner-Bloser, Palmer ink pens, and kids who refuse to master manuscript because they prefer keyboarding.

None of the article was ONLY about handwriting. Why are we so quick to reduce important brain development insights into lowest common denominator crusades, sabotauging our kids in the process? Slow down and think. Try to remember what has gone missing because it is massive and should not be forgotten. Maybe we are trying to accept that too many of our children no longer paint, pound nails, measure cookie ingredients and shape them into tasty rounds and squares, thread a needle, build a simple circuit, weave potholders, needlepoint names and endearments onto Mother's Day hankies, roll clay coils into gorgeously crooked pots, plant tiny herbs in the schoolyard garden plot, and draw luscious nation maps onto chalkboards in vivid, mesmerizing colors. Maybe we are trying to turn away from what we have willingly surrendered just because it is easier just to give up. But let's not persist on this pathway any longer because it is a treacherous destination we are headed toward. We know the nueroscientists are trying to warn us off of our own social demise.

Beautiful handwork makes for beautiful brains. It is an old insight and a very honored tradition in all good schools for youth of every age. Waldorf and Montessori classrooms have kept the faith, as have good art, shop, craft and phys ed teachers. But it is not enough to leave it at that.

Step away from the profound alienation of mindless testing mandates that reduce human hopes and dreams into data points. No one engaging in such behavior is well-meaning. They are not reforming or transforming. They are not our friends or our future. Teachers around the globe are busy with Anti-Austerity Activism. It is a dis-ease that begins with the obliteration of all beautiful handwork which results in the obliteration of beautiful brains who then submit to King and Queen Midas as they scoop up all the gold coins for their own privatized fantasy land. Quit carping about handwriting and start tracking on The Big Picture.