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Radical New Teaching Method
June 13, 2014
Bring your work back to the workshop twenty times. Polish it continuously, and polish it again.
-Nicolas Boileau
-Nicolas Boileau
Whenever I see a headline such as this, I am immediately cynical — more false hype, no doubt. But when I read the Wired article sent to me by Kirsten Haugen, "How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses," I was amazed. The article tells the story of Jose Urbina Lopez Primary School that sits next to a dump in Matamoras, Mexico, "a sun-baked city that is a flash point in the war on drugs." People in Matamoras call the school un lugar de castigo — "a place of punishment." Yet in 2012, ten students from a single class in this school placed in the 99.99th percentile for the entire country in a national standardized exam.
What happened is that the teacher, Juarez Correa, decided to give up on traditional education and engage in a student-driven approach where the students decided what they wanted to know and simply worked on their own to figure it out. Similar approaches, inspired by Sugata Mitra in India, involved the same approach with students surfing the Internet for answers. Correa's school had no computers, but the students' eagerness to research was just as robust.
If you, too, are cynical, I invite you to read the article and share your reactions.
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Comments (5)
Displaying All 5 CommentsNewton, NJ, United States
I would encourage anyone who happens upon this post to please read the full article. It is long time that we move away from Industrialized Education which serves only the passive learner and I would argue that it does not serve that student well. I reposted the full article on LinkedIn and facebook. The movement has to start with us--the early childhood community. We need to be advocating for our children and our country. It starts with us.
retired teacher educator
San Angelo, TX, United States
Oh, you had me until I read that the 'Common Core' was included in the historical progression of student centered learning. Sorry. It is NOT!
The roles of learners AND mentors change from the traditional. Teachers need not be afraid of thinking.
Common Core focus is hooked directly to standardized testing. Bleeeah!
(retired after 38 years as an Early Childhood Teacher Educator)
Peek-A-Boo Playhouse
rohnert park, Ca, United States
I believe it's spelled Matamoros.It's in the State of Tamaulipas and is just South of the Texas boarder.
United States
Wow, how awesome would that be, children that learn, discover and explore the world without limitations or boundaries. It is a new age and this kind of teaching, educating and understanding of children is long overdue!
Denver, CO, United States
This sounds very much like an approach I discovered being used in Brasil several years ago. The process I observed is called Lifelike Pedagogy, and is reported in an article in the current edition of Young Children.
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