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1. I’m going to present you with four statements. Which is closest to your personal philosophy? “I believe all students can learn…
- based on their ability.”
- if they take advantage of the opportunities we give them to learn.”
- something, but it is more important that we create a warm and caring environment than fixating on academic achievement.”
- and we should be committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure all students learn at high levels.”
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
interview
Richard DuFour on questions to ask job candidates:
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7 comments:
I believe that we should provide children with the best opportunities to learn that we can. I believe that all children can learn something, but I don't actually think all children can learn everything/the same things (I've been in too many well taught classes to believe that if you teach it right everyone will get everything, and get it to the same high level); and I'm not sure all children can learn effectively in the same learning environment.
I don't think we're very good at predicting or even measuring which children are doing as well as they can in which environments, so I think the only moral thing to do is to provide choices to children and their parents about schooling options (and these should include options that are significantly different from each other: for instance, if all of the available schools are using Everyday Math, that's not a real choice).
Note that when I say choices, I'm specifying learning environments, not learning styles. I think I would be happy if every district had school choice, and there were one school using Direct Instruction, and one school using Montessori, as well as the usual offerings. In a big enough district, I'd like some magnet schools with academic emphases, and, to be fair to the people who aren't like me, some that are arts based or service based or project based, or one of those things (and there should be some options that fall into the category that used to be called vocational). I'd like to see all of these, and more than that I'd like to see them all done well. Our current system suffers, I believe, from us (people) believing that we know what works, and that we can make expert decisions, and expect them to work for all students. If there were a little more true competition in the system, parents and children might be able to find a place where they could succeed.
Some people have children who are very similar to each other: similar talents, similar personalities. I have children that are wildly different from each other. They are all fairly talented academically--which is a really good thing because there's only one of them that really thrives in a standard school environment (thank goodness for Montessori). The others are too stubborn, or too absent minded, or too clueless about the social aspect of the classroom (including noticing when the teacher talks to you), or too lots of things that would keep them from learning if they didn't have brains that soaked up information like sponges. There's no way you can take people like that and turn out a consistent result at the end.
Lindamoodbell said...
"I came across this world best learning center, www.lindamoodbell.com ..."
Just happened to find it?
"ON CLOUD NINE® MATH (OCN™) stimulates the ability to image and verbalize the concepts and processes of math. Concept imagery and numeral imagery are integrated with language to improve math computation and problem solving."
That's the full extent of the information, but it's "awesome" and "world best".
Hey, if Andy Isaacs can toot his own EM horn, why not Linda Mood Bell?
Always nice to hear from Linda just as it is to get an occasional love note from Andy. Maybe Phil Daro will drop a line. Room for plenty more aboard this train!
Who is Linda?
"Lindamood-Bell is an organization dedicated to enhancing human learning. We were founded by Nanci Bell, Patricia Lindamood, and Phyllis Lindamood - the authors of critically acclaimed programs that teach children and adults to read, spell, comprehend, and express language."
Lindamood-Bell is, I am told, a fantastic reading remediation program.
Tom Zeffiro told me this himself a number of years ago.
Yes, it is excellent-the polar opposite of reform math.
But there is no "Linda".
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