Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill
Are smaller classes even necessary? I've often wondered if having two teachers in a single classroom would help. It would certainly help with ability groupings, as well as with the overall administrative headaches. It may also help to tackle this culture of, erm, independence (i.e. lack of collaboration) in the school as a whole since teachers are being forced to work with at least one colleague anyhow.
It would also help new teachers get into the field. I think that a lot of teachers teach as they were taught simply because they are given a year of training then thrust into a classroom to deal with things alone. Professional development is usually a day or two long, which doesn't leave time for things to sink in (especially when you're returning to the classroom the next day). On top of that, it helps if you have a set of lesson plans that you can modify with time. Doing everything at once is nuts. It also helps if you taught from those lesson plans before, because it takes time to learn a programme even if it is handed to you on a silver platter.
Anyhow, the problems with eduction seem to range from end to end: with parents on one end and governments on the other. (Yes, that includes teachers and students as well.) Having too many interests also seems to make the whole system too rigid. It's far to easy to stay with the status quo and tweak the status quo, even when everyone hates it, because noone will agree on how to make more significant changes.
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This discussion is going to unexpected places. I think the whole teaching model is broken. I see people trying to adjust things from within and getting frustrated when they fail. A good example is the
Mulligan Model not spreading like a virus across the US.
In my home, we have two children. One is very successful despite coming from a dysfunctional school system. The other is a Special Needs kid who benefits from the misplaced priorities that broke the rest of the school system. My youngest has benefited much more from the misplaced priorities than my oldest has suffered. So I immediately concede that it may not matter what we do to the schools.
We have also used something called VLACS (Virtual Learning Academy Charter School) which benefits from having discarded most of the constraints of traditional schools. Because they have no school calendar, they can implement a successful Competency Model.
I have also served as an apprentice. I think a lot of the watch-learn-do-teach approach to learning. I think teachers and students would benefit from some of this.
At some point, learning will be folded into living and working. We will learn and research and share online then meet up to do things that are hard to do at home.