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“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

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Time Travel University

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

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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.

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

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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

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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

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