Education
"I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Gas chambers built my learned engineers, children poisoned by educated physicians, infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot and buried by high school and college graduates. So I am suspicious of education. My request is: Help your students become more human. Your efforts should never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmans. Reading, writing and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make children more humane." (source) |
New Link http://www.endtherace.org/ - Less Homework Movement in USA
link
The Importance of Developing
Emotional Intelligence As I see it, there are many reasons to develop a child's natural emotional intelligence. For example:
I have written about each of these in my EI in my parenting section. |
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So called "Disruptive"
students and behaviors A thought on "disruptive behavior" - if a student were to start bleeding, would the teacher call this "disruptive behavior"? If the seats the students are forced to sit in were electrified and sent shocks to the student, causing him or her to scream out in pain, would this be considered disruptive behavior? But for the student who "disrupts" the normal class, the student is typically in some kind of pain. Pain from boredom, pain from needs not being met. Why have the teachers chosen to call a student's pain and needs "disruptions"? Maybe the teachers like to label students and behavior as "disruptive" because the teachers themselves are actually the most direct cause of the pain and the unmet needs. For example, when a student needs to get up and move around and the teacher won't let him. In this example, I would say the teacher is causing the student pain. By labeling the student disruptive when he tries to move to stop his pain, the teacher avoids taking the responsibility for causing the pain. If a student is bored to the point where it starts to become painful, so he tries to make the class more interesting by talking, telling jokes etc., are we to blame the student for this. too? I don't believe this is helping society. This pain and these unmet need cause problems outside of the school building - |
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Individual Differences and Innate
Needs Here is a very good quote about education and differing individual needs.
From: Choice as a Way to Quality
Learning, Nancy Reckinger |
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Consequences My Comments on Natural vs. Fabricated Consequences Alfie Kohn's Chapter on Punishment and Pseudochoices Article by Teresa Pitman (also saved as edu_art1.htm) |
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EQ
News! EQ News! was a publication started by EQI for those interested in elementary education Here are the issues which were published. EQ News! Vol. 1, Issue 1 Contents
Presently, the other two are available in printed form. I may put them on line at some point in the future. The contents are as follows:
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Low Emotional Intelligence Among
Head Teachers?
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Resources, Reviews, Recommended Reading
Under construction - High School Course Outline Responsibility Training, by Norma Spurlock, 1996 How Children Fail, John Holt (Based on a journal of classroom observations. His conclusion is that children fail because they are "scared, bored and confused.") From Childhood To Adolescence, Maria Montessori To Educate the Human Potential, Maria Montessori Punished by Rewards, Alfie Kohn (Very heavily research-based. A bit difficult to read/very academic. Basic conclusion is that all forms of extrinsic motivation are inferior to intrinsic motivation. Even rewards fail to motivate in the long run.) Emotional
Development of Young Children: Building an
Emotion-Centered Trying Freedom, Richard Meisler (A college teacher's experience in giving his students more freedom.) Michel Foucault's "Discipline
and Punish, the Birth of the Prison", and John |
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Miscellaneous Thoughts and Quotes on
Education
If emotional and intellectual life are one, the same, there is no conflict. If we keep these spheres separate, we set limits on both education and intelligence. Stanley Greenspan, The Growth of the Mind: And the Endangered Origins of Intelligence -- "The role of the teacher shifted from being a guide to being an "agent" of the ruling classes. Through using repetition and rigid instruction, teachers train students to obey, to learn passively and to compete against each other. Like a soldier, or a policeman, the teacher uses discipline, which manifests in a constant demand for silence and a refusal to allow pupils to dissent, as the tools to shape classroom culture and student behavior." From "The
Handbook of Alternative Education", by the National
Coalition of Alternative Schools (NCAS) Contacts: (505)
474-4312; Jerry Mintz, 417 Roslyn Rd. Roslyn Hts, NY
11577, Phone (516) 621-2195 |
Abstract: Daniel Goleman's
bestselling book 'Emotional Intelligence: Why It
Can Matter More Than IQ' has influenced many school systems in
the US to teach
such values as kindness and people skills. Proponents of
emotional learning
curriculum say its helps children both academically and socially.
Patrice Edwards teaches second grade at Beecher Elementary, a
public school in
New Haven, Conn., where most of her students wear maroon-plaid
uniforms.
That's the first indication that something unusual is going on.
Here's the
second: on a recent September morning, as the 25 children in
Edwards' class
sat cross-legged on the floor passing a big blue ball around,
they whispered
compliments to each other. "You're a nice speller."
"You've got pretty hand-
writing." "You are a good artist." A soothing calm
settled in the room. For
the moment, traditional academics were nowhere to be found.
Edwards says the
kids are learning deeper truths. "We are teaching them
values that are
universal," she says. "Being kind to a person--that's
something all people
need to do."
This is school? Kindness is an ancient virtue, but the idea of
formally teach-
ing six- and seven-year-olds to give compliments in an inner-city
public
school is brand-new. In New Haven all students from kindergarten
through high
school take part in the district's Social Development Program,
which weaves
"emotional learning" exercises--like the ball-rolling
game--into the fabric of
an ordinary school day. School officials say problem-solving and
stress-management skills are as essential as literature and long
division to a
'90s education. "We believe it needs to be comprehensive,
just like science
and math," says Merrie Harrison, a seventh-grade teacher.
"Every child, every
school, every year."
As many as 700 school districts across the country have
instituted programs
that aim to nourish students' souls as well as their minds. And
while the best
teachers have long taught kids to behave and play fair, they now
have science
on their side. In 1995 psychologist and New York Times science
writer Daniel
Goleman published Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More
Than IQ,
which contends that children's ability to recognize their own
emotions,
empathize with peers and deal with crises--their "emotional
quotient," or
EQ--influences their life chances as much as native intelligence.
The book,
now a paperback best seller, has had a catalytic effect. Rutgers
psychologist
Maurice Elias, a pioneer in emotional education, says he fields
endless calls,
E-mails and faxes from interested educators. "There is
credibility now given
to taking time in the school day to carry out this kind of
work," he says.
For many teachers, this new focus is welcome. The forces driving
students to
distraction have never been stronger. Says Goleman: "If you
are a kid who
wants to avoid depression or violence and not drop out, academic
topics will
have nothing to do with it." Marylu Simon, school
superintendent in Highland
Park, N.J., says many children arrive at school "simply
angry from some situa-
tion that has happened at home. It affects their ability to come
into the
school, sit down at their desk and be ready to learn."
So Highland Park sixth-graders are taught to act as cool-headed
"peer
mediators" who swoop in to resolve tussles among their
peers. At Hazel Valley
Elementary School, outside Seattle, misbehaving students go to
principal Bar-
bara Walton's office not for a scolding but for a questionnaire
that asks them
to identify the classroom problems they caused and to generate
solutions.
"It's nice to have discipline that's problem solving and not
just punishment,"
Walton says.
Some parents bristle at such squishy, New Agey techniques. At its
worst, they
say, emotional learning verges on therapy sessions for
third-graders. "I don't
want my children talking about my family's problems in the
classroom," a
Highland Park father said at a school meeting. But EQ gurus such
as Professor
Roger Weissberg of the University of Illinois in Chicago say
students in the
best programs have shown not just "more positive attitudes
about ways to get
along with people" but also improvements in
critical-thinking skills. And in
New Haven, teenagers say they're witnessing less violence, toting
fewer guns
and having sex later. Admittedly, better behavior does not ensure
academic
achievement. But American schools will take good news where they
can find it.
-- End --
InfoTrac Web: Expanded Academic ASAP Int'l
Ed..
Full content for this article includes
illustration and photograph.
Source: Time, Sept 29, 1997 v150 n13 p62(1).
Title: Teaching feelings 101. (teaching
emotional intelligence)
Author: Romesh Ratnesar
Full Text COPYRIGHT 1997 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Notes
The education quote is often attributed to Haim Ginott. From my research though it appears Ginott was not the author of it, he just had it in one of his books.