kitchen table math, the sequel: cruising Edweek

Friday, March 23, 2007

cruising Edweek

Dona/Parent Involvement Specialist/Early Reading First
03/21/2007 9:32AM

The problems our children will have to solve in the 21st century are, for the most part, problems we have not anticipated in the same way that the problems we encountered were not the ones our parents and teachers had solved in their pasts. Teaching children that there are RIGHT and WRONG answers, with such high stakes that entire school districts and most parents are seized with the outcomes of testing, does not give our children the skills and self-confidence they need to solve the unique problems they will encounter in their futures.
source:
Standardized Expectations vs. Creative Thinking


I don't think I have the energy to respond.

2 comments:

Instructivist said...

How can we prepare for solving these mythical problems if we don't know yet what they are?

Barry Garelick said...

It's hard to know how to respond to something like that.

But let's just say that some of us are able to solve the problems we encounter (which our parents and teachers had not encountered) because of things she doesn't feel we should teach today's 21st century students. Why she wants to slam the door to engineering and sciences in the face of these kids is beyond me, but she obviously thinks she knows what she's doing.