Friday odds and ends

by Yule Heibel on September 10, 2010

I’m still mulling over my Wednesday blog post on the state of education, provoked in part by the comments others have left on Fred‘s and Joanne‘s blog posts about Waiting for Superman (see also the article by John Heilemann). I left two more comments on Fred’s post – which now has 331 comments. Every time someone posts a new one, I get an email notification …and more to think about. Unreal.

I also watched Sugata Mitra’s 2010 TED Talk video on Child-Driven Education. Lots to think about there. When we were still in the throes of home-schooling (albeit with Ministry support through BC Distance Education School), I appreciated the various group activities offered to the kids, but always longed for autonomous learning centers – sort of like YMCAs or community centers  or libraries – where kids could come together and learn. Sort of like university for the pre-university/college set. Mitra’s child-driven learning conveys some of that.

At any rate, there’s no single “silver bullet” for solving problems with education …maybe because it’s not “just” about “education”/ because everything is about education.

Edit/update: as I wrote my post, another response fluttered into my email box – a response to a comment I made to someone on avc.com. The writer says that my comment shows I’m “someone who a) doesn’t have children or b) is affluent or c) both.” Well, lol and all that… And I guess some people don’t read!  The writer adds, “I don’t take part in social experiments.” That’s too bad. I don’t know that there’s anything but experiments when it comes to social.

~~~

This week has been interesting. I’ve started getting up early – and I keep thinking of how it killed Descartes. I’m not sure I can keep it up.

I want to live! 😉

In other news:

Just days apart, I saw two bumper stickers that seemed to be talking to one another.

The first said, “Trees cause rain.”

The second said, “Trees are the solution.”

I wondered if that meant that rain is a solution? (Well, of course it is…)

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