kitchen table math, the sequel: CONSTRUCTING GOOD, TELLING BAD.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

CONSTRUCTING GOOD, TELLING BAD.


THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS

1. Whoever tells their truths to small children is the enemy.
2. Whoever lets small children construct their own truths is a friend.
3. No teacher shall use a red pen.
4. No teacher shall write on a blackboard.
5. No teacher shall give out gold stars.
6. No teacher shall deconstruct the narrative of any other teacher.
7. All teachers are equal.

revised 3/05/07

8 comments:

Catherine Johnson said...

yikes!

your post is in italics!

do you want italics?

Catherine Johnson said...

I love your post!

You need to write Animal Farm for constructivists.

Anonymous said...

Very funny, Becky! That's a keeper.

Catherine Johnson said...

It really is brilliant.

Catherine Johnson said...

I'm going to have to make up a "keeper" category.

Barry Garelick said...

A "keeper" category would engender competition which brings up another commandment in the educationist canon:

"All students are equal, but some students are more equal than others."

Thus, only sport events in which everyone wins are allowed. No spelling bees, no mandatory science fair participation. (This last one is absolutely true).

BeckyC said...

Oh, everybody at our school gets a ribbon for their excellent science fair project. EVERYBODY.

No spelling bees, though.

But the multiculturalists are cool with geography bees, so we have geography bees in which there are winners and losers. We incent that.

I mean, we provide learning environments in which learners are motivated to construct geographical meanings.

Catherine Johnson said...

hey!!

what happened to Snowball and Squealer!!!???