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Joined: Oct 2008
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This letter to the editor got me going this morning.  For our badly needed education reform, we could try methods used in some other countries. Pre-K and K-students' interest should be targeted away from themselves by awakening their appreciation for creativity in nature's flora and fauna. Teachers should emphasize social values: how to behave, develop altruistic feelings and interdependence with others.
All competition should be avoided. At this early age (Pre-K and K) IQ and other tests are not valid.
When children start elementary school the students and their parents should be informed that normal mental development, like physical growth, varies extensively. Students should not be categorized according to speed of learning.
Nothing we know can change the genetic code of an individual. It dictates a child's speed of growth and learning. How could we conclude that the child is inadequate if his/her genetically programmed development is chronologically slow?
Jack P. Shonkoff at Harvard's Center on the Developing Child has found in his research a threefold difference in expressive vocabulary by the age of 3. Research in Europe has shown that the genetic equality to learn can spread over 15 to 25 years.
Teaching should concentrate on the slow students and the so called "gifted" could assist the teachers with the slower classmates. The slower students can catch and even surpass the faster students, if given enough time.
Pentti Teraslinna
Lexington After I calm down, I'm going to work on a response to the off base conclusions. I'm open to suggestions.
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OK that is just unbelieveable. "The slower students can catch and even surpass the faster students, if given enough time." - yes, especially when the faster students are being held back.
What was the letter in response to?
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Joined: Oct 2007
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I'm glad you are going to write a response. People have all kind of uninformed opinions, it is annoying when they assert something so totally obscene towards our "so called" kids.  I'm a firm believer that people are entitled to their opinions, even when the opinions are clearly not based in reality. I think they have medicine for that.................hmmmm.......
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Argh! So...many...arguments...Cannot...even...respond...
Kriston
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What does this Research in Europe has shown that the genetic equality to learn can spread over 15 to 25 years. even mean?
Kriston
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What does this Research in Europe has shown that the genetic equality to learn can spread over 15 to 25 years. even mean? Lysenkoism - the idea that acquired traits can become genetically encoded. Its still prevalent in some Leninist-Marxist writings, which the author seems to have read uncritically. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism"It is often suggested that Lysenko's success came solely from the desire in the USSR to assert that heredity had only a limited role in human development; that future generations, living under socialism, would be purged of their 'bourgeois' or 'fascist' instincts." I am not trying to get political here, but want to try to shed some light on the author's thought processes. It seems the author wants to deny human nature.
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PS. If genetic code dictates speed of growth and learning, why do we even need schools? Genetics should handle it all. On the one hand the superiority of some students is denied. ( "All kids can catch up.") Then the supposed basis (in their mind) for its manifestation (genetics) is validated. ( "Its all genetics." ) The role of the child's innate desires is lost by reducing the argument to a social or material level. This is a pretty complex bait and switch tactic. Each (false) argument is a ball of string for the mind's cat's eye. The yarn is to be chased without regard for whether than yarn should chased!!! Nowhere is the right of the child to learn at their own pace discussed because the child does not matter. There are other goals that are more important.
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That does help. Thanks, Austin. It made absolutely no sense to me as written. It still doesn't, actually, but at least I know why not...
Kriston
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This is a pretty complex bait and switch tactic. Each (false) argument is a ball of string for the mind's cat's eye. The yarn is to be chased without regard for whether than yarn should chased!!! Agreed. This is why I didn't even know where to begin to tear it apart. There's so much wrong, and in so many different ways, it's hard to know where to start! It's just overwhelmingly awful! Anyone else think English might not be the first language, too? I'm wondering if there's some language barrier that's making it harder to follow the thread there.
Kriston
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I found this from back in July and it seems he's writing in response to the push for pre-K programs in our state. This letter includes more derision of gifted programs. Right way to teach
I was really surprised to learn from the Herald-Leader that �the state is recruiting pre-K advocates to strengthen goals of education.� Educators say, �Pre-K programs can improve the state�s work force and save tax dollars.� Pre-K diplomas were awarded to 3- and 4-year-olds. The owner of Shaw�s child care in Lexington says: �We teach them Spanish, sign language, they get their sounds down, we have them reading ready.� A child cannot learn reading before adequate language skills and vocabulary.
That means not just memorizing hundreds of words but how these words relate to thought.
Compare this to the nation that is leading in educational progress among the tested world�s 57 countries. In Finland, children start elementary school at age 7. The schools have no honor societies and no classes for the so-called gifted. They have no marching bands, proms or valedictorians, and they have no organized competitive sports programs. Physical education, arts and music are included in the curriculum. At 9, they start a foreign language and at 11, a second foreign language. By ninth grade, students have achieved 100 percent literacy and are way ahead in math, science and reading. Daily homework takes 30 to 60 minutes.
All teachers have master�s degrees in their teaching specialty. They also have to show competency in the extremely important heterogeneity in child development and learning.
This basic pragmatic approach in education has achieved the desired results.
Pentti Teraslinna Lexington I'm thinking about including this in my response. It's about special needs education in the Finland. Children whose development according to experts in education and pupil welfare services and parents or other guardians, involves risk factors related to learning potential, shall also be entitled to special support. It's been pretty well documented that gifted children have risk factors related to learning potential - learned underachievement and unhealthy perfectionism.
Last edited by inky; 12/03/08 10:29 AM.
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