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Which is better?




I have run across another crappy part in this textbook I am using for my introduction to counseling class. The author is explaining the job of an elementary school counselor. I worked in elementary schools for a couple school years and half the things that are listed are more appropriate for a teacher. Things like "Implementing effective classroom guidance". That is really for a teacher to do. Now if there is a problem child then I can see the counselor working with that child. Or how about "developing students career awareness"? This sounds great for a High school. But we are talking about kindergarten through 5th grade for crying out loud. We are among the last in the industrialized world in education shouldn't we be working on "elementary" things in elementary school? Not working on if the child wants to be an astronaut or a zoo keeper? How about elementary school counselors are to "participate in school improvement"? I think I have a better idea. If you aren't interested in the school you work for being better then you pack your stuff and get out because they don't need school faculty that don't give a crap.

Or how about this list here that is supposed to go along with demonstrating how school counselors are changing the way elementary schools operate for the better.

OLD SCHOOL CULTURE

1. Adult Driven
2. Punishment
3. Externally imposed discipline
4. Focus on Problems
5. Competitive, non-collaborative
6. Unit expected to change: the individual
7. Peer isolation
8. problems approached by adults using discipline, threats, paddle, and and behavior modification.
9. Children try to solve problems by swearing, hitting, and threats
10. Children not empowered to change themselves and to help others change.

NEW SCHOOL CULTURE

1. Student-Driven
2. Learning New Skills
3. Self imposed discipline
4. Focus on problem solving
5. Cooperative, collaborative
6. Unit expected to change: the individual, the group, the community
7. Peer Support
8. Problems resolved by adults using dialogue*, positive interactions, and a problem solving model.
9. Children try to solve problems by the problem solving model and peer support
10. Children are empowered to change themselves and to help others change


So lets consider this. Obviously they are trying to say New is better here.
So lets see if what they say makes sense.


So on number 1 we have the old way where classes are adult driven and the new and "improved" way where they are student driven. Which class is going to be more effectively instructed, the one where the teacher is leading or one that is student driven?

I'm going to go with the teacher driven class... I'm giving 1 point to old school and -100 points to new school for extreme mental incompetence. I expect a college text book written by "experts" in their field to at least make sense.

2 Punishment vs. "Learning new skills".

My Aunt teaches school in an inner city school. Several years back some kid punched her and broke her nose. I think there is a time where punishment is 100% appropriate. Some behaviors are simply unacceptable in the real world and they are in a school setting as well. (Am I missing something here???)

Old 2 New -101

3. Externally imposed discipline vs self imposed discipline.

Last I checked self discipline is an evidence of maturity. Elementary schools are made up of children. Young children. I rest my case.

Old 3 New -102

4. Focus on problems vs. focus on problem solving.

If anyone here that grew up under the old harsh regime before these new enlightened times can remember wasn't it terrible how when someone did something wrong at school all anyone cared about was the problem? They didn't care about problem solving like they do now they just focused on the problem. Simply awful wasn't it? <- end sarcasm... I'm starting to think this list has the intellectual value of raw sewage.

Old 4 New -103


5. Competitive, non-collaborative vs. cooperative, collaborative.

Which is more like the real world? Because the whole purpose of education it to prepare people for the real world. There is a reason work is graded and people get those grades. Because when someone hires you they expect you to earn your way and add value to the bottom line as an employee. And that often means being competitive. Is there a place for team work and cooperation? You bet. I don't think these concepts are mutually exclusive and I think there is a place both in school. It seems though the writer of the list thinks that schools should move on to this new stuff and not allow competition. I think that is a mistake. Anyone have any thoughts on that?


I'll have to finish this later. I have to get to bed!









*That is how it is spelled in the book.

I generally agree with what you're saying. By its very nature, education is molding and forming children into what society sees as advantageous for itself. Thus, to pretend that education is actually about raw learning, as if knowledge were some abstract heaven of ideas that didn't need enforcing from a power structure, is naive and dangerous. Education is a power structure and must be driven by those in charge. If it is "handed over" to the "peer collaboration" of the students themselves, then the system becomes self-reflexively nihilistic.

A few observations:
1. knowing what questions to ask is more important than knowing answers... as any grad student knows (focus on problems)
2. Energetic learning requires peer competition, especially for boys and the natural sciences and mathematics.
3. Particularly talented students cannot be expected to provide regular "peer support" for their fellow students. We talk about "leaving no child behind"... but what about "keeping no talented child back"? (there was a recently article in Time magazine about this topic)
4. Children "empowered" to change themselves and others? How about not giving children the illusion that they can "be anything they want"? How about acknowledging the truth that some students are smarter and more talented than others? How about not telling our children lies about their place in this world?
5. Try to solve problems peacefully? I have a better idea: let's be mature adults and learn to live with kids' natural reactions to situations. Chinese models of primary education follow this latter rule more often: instead of intervening to stop a situation, they allow the confrontation to play itself out in the presence of other students. The instigator or antagonist usually comes to realize his own fault through the peer evaluations which he faces through such action... different culture!
6. Problems solved by adults through dialogue rather than discipline? I have a better idea: how about our teachers stop being baby-sitters and counselors. Send the brats to the principal and be done with it. Teachers don't have time to fix everyone's problem.
7. And what are we out to change? The group? Perhaps, but only by focusing on the individual. Hold students accountable for their actions and talents... only then will they care about the whole. Students will only resent the group if they have to carry its entire weight on their shoulders.

Granted, my teaching experience is limited to undergrads, but here goes.

Student-driven does not mean that the kids are writing the lesson plans, grading the homework, etc. It means that classwork is more than the medieval lecture mode, where the teacher is up in front of a bunch of students who are supposed to sit still, take notes, and remember. Instead, the teacher is leading students or groups of students through sets of activities designed to reinforce concepts and memorized facts. If the students are lost, it becomes obvious almost immediately. If they aren't engaged, that also becomes obvious immediately. In the context of undergraduate chemistry courses, this meant I sat down with a group of students each week, passed out a problem set, and helped them through it for a couple hours each week. These problem sets corresponded to whatever they learned in lecture that week. If the instructors were really on top of their game, it had some relevance to what they did in the lab as well, but the turf wars at my undergraduate university were such that the classroom and the lab were fairly disconnected - to the point where they hired different sets of TAs for each portion of the course (where I am now, it's the complete and utter opposite). At the end of the session, they took their finished problem sets home. They got credit for showing up, but there was no point in grading the actual workshop problems - the competition element was in the test grades (and believe me, in any class that has a significant number of pre-meds, the competition got ugly ). Your typical undergrad is a sleep-deprived stress case and the students would have vastly preferred it if I just got up and lectured at them while they napped and then woke them up and gave them the answers, but the point of the workshop format was to force them into getting their hands dirty and their brains working. So I brought them candy and made them do the work. My job was to make sure the sessions didn't turn into the blind following the blind off a cliff or something.

I'd have to ask my sister what student-driven means in the context of elementary school but I have a feeling it is not too dissimilar to chemistry workshops.

Student driven is where the teacher says X. Y. What next?

It's where the student isn't spoon fed info, and therefore in effect teaches him/herself. My chemistry and physics classes are like this. We get the bare minimum and have to work out the rest between ourselves. If we're really stuck, we get another nudge in the right direction. It makes for much better understanding and also retention of the subject matter.

I know a lot of the "new school" terminology sounds like fannying about, but I do think that without that touchy-feely attitude being everyday in school bureaucracy then I would never have made it to University. I ran into a few problem teachers, or problems, or I'm exceptionally rude and abrasive in RL or something, and I got thrown off a few courses, and I wouldn't have been able to get back on if people weren't willing to give and take over the heads of the teachers in question. I really don't think I'm a disruptive pupil, so I'm not really sure how throwing me off the courses was meant to help anyone, but my point stands... one or two nice administrators completely saved my arse.

*~Pips~*

What can be said other than the "new list" is complete bull. I'm not huge on college even though I will be attending soon. I don't like the school systems or the way they're run. I think they're crap.

You can't force a kid to go to school and subsequently tell him he can do what he wants. (in a nutshell) That's backasswards.

You can't tell a kid he can be anything he wants to be when he grows up if you know damn well he's got the I.Q. of an Acorn.

I went to college for 1 semester and I found that the dumb students are the ones who screw it up for everyone else. The dumb students wanted to "Colaborate" on cheating the test. Where as me and a few others just wanted to do the thing right and get it over with properly and promptly.

I'm a big fan of punishment. Kids don't learn lessons if they're simply told to think for themselves and learn from it. I always learned from getting two swift kicks to the butt. I never repeated my mistakes, thusly, I got fewer imprints of my father's boot.

Basicly, people are getting lazy and naive. They're holding ideals, though admirable and with the best of intent, and holding them on a child's level. A creature that isn't able to comprehend half the concepts we try to enforce upon them today. That's why babies are having babies. Kids are getting shot and stolen from by other kids, even (though rarely) in grades as low as elementary school. You can turn an apple into applejuice, but you can't force a child to become an adult. It's silly.