GoldieBlox

Check out this wonderful engineering toy for girls!  The launch video is below, and you can buy it here.

Obey, Memorize - Paying to be programmed

The process of mainstream ‘education’ swamps the left side of the brain with the system’s version of reality by communicating ‘logical’ and ‘rational’ information based on ‘observable evidence’. Students are then told to retain this information, and revise it thoroughly, before taking something called an ‘exam’ in which they must repeat to the system what the system has told them to believe.

If they do this really well they pass their exams and ‘progress’. Well done, Johnny, well done Jane, good marks. If they go on doing this really well they might even go to university and get a degree to mark their degree of programming. How programmed are you? I’ve got a first class degree. Oh, first class programming, well done you.

Article continues here.

A Valedictorian speaks

It is the month of speeches and graduations, honors and entitlements.  A few  years ago there was a speech given by Erica Goldson, valedictorian of  her high school class.  Perhaps you have seen it.  There are no words to add to what she has summed up here.  Thank you Erica.  You speak for so many of us.

Here is a link.

Here is Erica, addressing her graduation class.

Generation Waking Up

This is the generation we are educating.  It is a global generation, united by the internet and massive in numbers. As you watch you can't help but see that they are teaching themselves.  It is time that we honor them, and offer them a platform from which to fly. 

Cheating?

Atlanta Cheating Scandal

Here's a quote from this article about the cheating in Georgia "Matthew M. Chingos, a researcher in the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, points out that states spend about $1.7 billion a year on testing administration,"

What???? Did you know how many of your taxes dollars are spent on test guards rather than education/enrichment? This "expert" goes on to say that 1.7 BILLION is just a fraction of the education budget and it should be higher, so that kids won't cheat.

When you consider this conversation about the merits or lack there of, of testing, who is speaking? It is not the students or the parents or even statistics on the ratio of successful test takers to happy, productive, creative people in society. It is the test designers, the institutions that read the scores and then decide whether or not you are fit to attend, the administration - it is those that directly profit $$$ from additional testing that are promoting the necessity of tests.

Maybe kids are cheating because they see that tests really don't matter, not to the things that matter to them. This is not a problem that can be fixed with more "enforcement". It is a call for change.

How Schools Kill Creativity - Ken Robinson

Sir Ken Robinson

The Education System