A philosopher king on an always sunny Sunday of the mind.

Here’s my question.

“How hard is it to teach students who want to learn?”

It seems to me that the answer is “Not very”

If this is true then the next question is what approaches, techniques and devices is your school or school system using to help student to want to learn.

And what percentage of time and resources is expended towards that goal. I’m not talking about individual teachers, but rather the organizational philosophy.

If a local school district was asked to state their Mission, how many of them would say “To instill in our students a desire to learn” and mean it.

My formal teaching experience is sparse, limited to my work as a substitute teacher. But this is what I noticed while working at our school districts “worst” high school (the one with the most black, spanish and poor immigrant students). The students were unruly and uninterested in the curriculum but when I pulled out a bunch of powerful rare earth magnets and allowed them to “play” with them, they became engaged and interested. And they started asking questions of me and each other about how different configurations repulsed or attracted and why. And as they figured something out they wanted to share it.

There are a lot of cool things in the world and as you’re exposed to them and allowed to interact you become excited and get ideas. It’s at these times when you have an idea and you need some kind of math, or background information or a bit of science that you’re ready and eager to learn it. A student who wants to learn is like a campfire and the teacher’s job is to help it burn hot and clean.

Without even considering the death of the soul that is No Child Left Behind and it legacy of teaching to the test, it seems to me that our public educational system is tied up in knots and doing everything backwards.

Pardon my ramblings

It’s not open for business yet but it is hiring and looking for Corporate Sponsors.

Time Travel University

Now you can learn what you need to know, before you go. Avoid embarrassment and time travel in safety.

Homosexuals have always been able to marry in all 50 states through a simple loophole in marriage law. They just have to marry someone of a different sex. That’s it. So simple.

The people who are trying to pass laws defining marriage as only between a man and a woman are missing out here. I suspect they want marriage to be defined as between a white christian man and a white christian women but this just shows how far they are able to bend there personal beliefs for political expediency.

Here is another great talk on education by David Eggers. It’s interesting, funny and exciting.
Your Comments are welcome.

Click on the fullscreen icon (to the right of the speaker icon) for a bigger picture.

Here is a delightful, amusing and touching talk by Sir Ken Robinson.
Please leave your comments.

Click on the fullscreen icon (to the right of the speaker icon) for a bigger picture.

Whenever I have someone tell me they don’t know which wine is good, I always tell them “If it taste good to you it’s good”.

Then while we’re drinking our wine I tell them this cautionary tale. I’ll just give you the chapter headings.

Chapter 1. You drink wine (but don’t like it)
Chapter 2. You drink more wine (and then you like it)
Chapter 3. You drink some Good wine (and really like it)
Chapter 4. You buy some Good Wine
Chapter 5. You buy more Good Wine
Chapter 6. You worry about proper storage
Chapter 7. You get a wine cellar
Chapter 8. You buy a lot lot lot more wine$$$$$$$

When you get the wine buying bug you can buy wine quicker than you can drink it and spend money you haven’t got

I like to find different ways to look at things. When you approach things in different ways you see different aspects which alter values and suggest different behaviors.

I just turned 54 so I’m going to approach this as if I had just turned 18 and this is my third time so I have a much better chance of getting it right.

What would I do if I was 18, knowing what i do now. I guess we should separate these things into two groups, those things that we can’t do because we aren’t really 18 and those that we can. I suspect that the first group will be smaller and furthermore that we probably can do most of the things we think we can’t do because we aren’t 18.

I don’t know if this might not be a little scary looking at the “mistakes” I made the first time around.

I’m going to give this some thought and make some lists.

I’m open to suggestions.

That’s all for now

jeff

I have a belief that probably isn’t going to be popular with some people.

It has to do with what motivates some people to to strive for achievement.

I think they’re probably unbalanced. They have a need to prove themselves because of some insecurity. They have some kind of fear which they’re fighting to allay or they have a chip on their shoulder which they’re trying to dislodge.

Here’s the background on why I think this.

I was reading Robert A Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson. Johnson’s father was an important man in his town and then he lost the farm both figuratively and literally.

Caro painted a vivid picture of how this deeply wounded Johnson and led to his absolute need to attain power and acquire riches.

The sort of behavior I’m characterizing is can be seen in the ‘Total War’ metaphor that underpins their actions.

Total War really came into it’s own in the early twentieth century. The concept was that war was not just fought with armies but with propaganda, misinformation, agent provocateurs, anything and everything was OK.

Our OSS, the precursor of the CIA, came out of this. It led to some seriously behavior (MK Ultra)

I bring this up as a means to look beneath the hood of some people. Just a way to ask yourself “What motivates them”?

And could I be talking about you……?