In my opinion, schools are collaborators of knowledge and purveyors social norms and expectations. Schools are acting as facilitators of knowledge instead of providers of knowledge. The goal of education is to help students become successful individuals, independent researchers, collaborators, and upstanding moral citizens. We are teaching them how to be successful in the world around them - knowledge and learning are merely the tools we use to facilitate this.
I agree that we provide tools to help students be successful in all realms of life. Those tools include such items as knowledge: of cultures, relationships, the need for continued learning, and reasoning.
Schools reinforce the culture in which we live. To be successful, students need to understand the world around them and have the tools necessary to participate. I do not see schools being able to provide all the knowledge necessary for success, especially since Lichtman indicated knowledge is doubling every year. What we can provide are the tools for students to become life-long learners, we are the role models for this.
We are absolutely role models. We have to keep in mind that some students don't have positive role models at home. Sometimes we are the only positive part of their day. If we are not representing what good students/people/ citizens are... how are they to know? If we do not uphold the standards we set for them, will they ever buy in to what we are teaching?
I agree schools can not provide all of the knowledge needed for success but we are able to provide tools to guide them and support them through the en-devours in life.
Schools teach students how to access knowledge. Hopefully we role model social skills as well as educational skills. Schools provide an environment for students to practice team work, leadership and exploring career paths (art, music, CTE classes). Students observe how teachers and administration interact with one another. If their home life is a bit dysfunctional, they are seeing adults interact as problem solvers who can work together in spite of differences of opinion (or illness or sadness) for the first time.
I would like to agree that schools are places to model social skills, but you can model all you want and it not be effective unless the students are given the chance to try those modeled skills. I think to the elementary levels, more and more time is spent on academic standards than on topics such as social skills. Free play is becoming less and less and this time is where kids learn social rules. If teachers want to be able to teach that, they have to teach children how something should be done instead of how they did it. I have a student that doesn't have any language due to a hearing loss. He had some of the behaviors you would see in 2 year olds that don't have the language on dealing with behaviors they don't like (pushing/hitting because someone took their toy). His classroom teacher had to teach him that what he did was not good and he should say, 'excuse me' or 'I don't like that'. I know that took time out of other things, but it is something that needed to be done. As free play is switched to structured play as in math or literacy centers, the teacher has to be more vigilant at noticing misbehaviors and taking the time to teach correct behaviors before they become habits and gets that student into bigger trouble later on in life.
I agree with the statement that there is less and less time spent on teaching social skills. Those are life skills and I feel more time should be spent working on it. There are a lot of students that get no teaching of social/moral skills taught or modeled at home.
I agree with both of you that social skills are important - and unfortunately they are often not taught at home. Kudos to your teacher, Heather for tackling that task with your student.
I agree too that the social skills are so important. Unfortunately, we are becoming a society of "if only" instead of "that was prevented because..." just look at the crime rate among young people. Many times on the news, there is the "if only..." statement made and it really makes me sad. But then again, the schools can do only so much to teach kids social skills and if it's not reinforced at home, those kiddos seem to fail at life.
I also agree with everyone’s comments about the need to teach a growing number of our students appropriate social skills. I listened to a speaker a couple years ago that spoke about social emotional learning. During his presentation, he made a point along the lines of something like this:
-What happens when students come to school and can’t write their names??? We teach them! What happens when students come to school and can’t read??? We teach them! We provide tiered levels of intervention and specifically designed instruction throughout their entire day! What happens when students come to school and exhibit inappropriate behavior??? We…??? That’s right! Punish them! We put them in timeout, send them to the principal’s office, and take away their recess!
I think that many teachers find they are teaching social skills, character traits, and manners. They are also teaching skills that are important for education and for life. For instance, many children are learning their “kill and drill” math facts that need to be memorized. They are also working on handwriting and practicing it to get letter formation just right. Without realizing it, many teachers are reinforcing positive character traits and good manners. I think many teachers are teaching how to learn, whether they realize that or not. Students are learning what modality is their preferred learning style, and some teachers are even helping students understand which of the 7 intelligences is their highest. One other item of importance in this digital age, is learning to evaluate sources. With so much information widely available on the internet, students need to learn how to find good sources and which sources are credible.
I like your thoughts on helping students figure out how they learn best - which goes back to being intentional and mindful of learning. I think your right in that school allows for practice but it is soooo much more than that!
Marcy - this is a really tough questions and I guess I haven't done enough "mindful" thinking on the topic. I think schools lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning -- teaching students how to gain information, seek out answers, ask questions and form relationships. I like Jerrie's mention that is a reflection of the culture we live in. There are many opportunities for students (athletics, music, debate, FFA, etc) to keep them engaged in their interests and the learning process before them.
I agree that schools lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning and that extra-curricular activities such as FFA (and others) encourage this as well as providing a venue to practice it.
I agree with you Jennifer about school laying the foundation. I sure hope that is what is actually happening in schools. If kiddos don't get that foundation from us, I'm afraid some of them won't ever get it.
If schools no long are the source of information, they need to be the source on how to use various tools to find that information. As we know, not everything you read is true so students need to be taught on how to make sure their information is credible. Teachers can also pose problems and guide the students how to work through the problems.
I disagree that schools are no longer the purveyors of knowledge. That is the root of any type of school. The question really is what kind of knowledge are we are providing/supplying? I believe that is where schools are at a crossroads: tradition versus reality. The world used to be a big place because knowledge was limited. That is no longer the case, technology has made the world a much smaller place. I have heard the term "digital citizenship" a lot lately, teaching students how to access and use information appropriately. Schools can no longer simply provide knowledge to students, there is too much out there and not enough time to teach it! Knowledge itself is becoming an ever changing definition. I think at this point it's a mix. As long as we are still bound by standardized testing then we will never completely get away from being purveyors of knowledge. But schools can, and have to, incorporate other kinds of knowledge into the day. Knowledge like digital citizenship, creativity, problem solving, ethics, etc..
I believe schools are still the purveyors of knowledge. I know some students who would not learn much if their education was left up to them to research and learn. I feel schools will still be teaching information, but using different methods in order to teach it. Schools are a place for students to gather to learn from others and hopefully gain the skills needed for life.
I agree with you on this students are attaining their information through different methods and teachers have to adjust to the students as well . It is very scary to think that we have this information at our fingertips through tablets and mobile devices and even desktop computers and we can find any kind information that we need. Whereas most of us when we were in school we would have to take the time to go to the library and look it up in books. We have students out there that struggle with finding this knowledge even on the Internet and even more so it's even harder for them to find it flipping through pages in a textbook. Sometimes it just blows my mind that they won't take the time to look around in a book to find the information that they need and sometimes it's just right there in front their face but they just don't see it. But yet they ask the teachers or staff to help find that word in a chapter when it's in bold type and sticking out like a sore thumb.
Purveyors of knowledge, I think it depends on the type of students we have in our schools that either embrace or don't embrace their education as being important. I think we have a mixture of both types of students in all our schools. We have students that get good grades work hard and want to be a success in life. Whereas we have other students that goes through school day without thinking ahead into their future they're just there because they're told to be there and they give subpar or below average work . It is sad that we have to make these types students do their school work and try their best, when they don't have the heart or the initiative to want to be there and become better citizens when they get out of school. These students have different priorities other than attaining their education because of their social economic status or their home life is not very good, so education is not a top priority for them. They do enough just to get by and then we move them on to the next grade level. I would like to believe that we are purveyors of knowledge for our students but I think we're only the purveyors of knowledge to the students that are wanting a better life for themselves. So these students work hard in school while the rest of the other students get left behind just by their own choices or the sacrifices they have to make that are out of our control when they're not in school.
Schools are here for foundational skills. They are here to provide the tools to use in daily living such as the skills of reading, math skills such as adding, subtracting and how to apply these skills to daily living. It provides opportunities for talents such as sports, band/choir, clubs, speech/debate and many others that lays a foundation for the kids to experience. It is about not only learning but learning through building relationships with peers and adults. It is about teaching the life long skills that will hopefully get them prepared for the outside world and prepare them for their future. I feel this is really a hard question and really got my mind to thinking.
I see that we still provide knowledge to students when they are in our classrooms. Daily we provide opportunities to kids to learn social skills, manage behaviors, learn skills to be successful young adults, and to be ready to go out in to society and provide knowledge and skills to those around them. We also help students figure out what their self-worth is through the opportunities to learn and grow we provide in the school setting.
I think that schools are still the purveyors of knowledge; however, I think that the knowledge that kids are learning in schools has changed over the years. It used to be that social skills and manners and home skills were taught at home. Now, as educators, we sometimes have to provide the kiddos with that knowledge as well. I think that the goal of most schools is to produce healthy, productive citizens when students graduate. Depending on the area that you teach in, you might be teaching different things to get students to be healthy, productive citizens. I guess I feel that if the school isn't providing at least some of that knowledge to kiddos, some of those kiddos will get so lost in the real world.
I don’t know that I necessarily agree with that statement. I still think schools are purveyors of knowledge. I mean, they might not always get all the information across in an ideal way to every student, but if we didn’t have schools, where would everyone be??? I mean, I can think of NUMEROUS students who would probably just be sitting on their mom and dad’s couch (or in front of a gaming system, or on Facebook, etc. etc.) for the rest of their lives if they didn’t have to be in school (or another academic environment). And while they’d probably learn something from that experience I guess, it definitely wouldn’t be the most worthwhile education. Also, besides academic information, schools provide an opportunity for social interaction and a means of developing those skills. I know I went off a little earlier about schools not being the best at this, but still, what they are providing is definitely better than nothing.
In my opinion, schools are collaborators of knowledge and purveyors social norms and expectations. Schools are acting as facilitators of knowledge instead of providers of knowledge. The goal of education is to help students become successful individuals, independent researchers, collaborators, and upstanding moral citizens. We are teaching them how to be successful in the world around them - knowledge and learning are merely the tools we use to facilitate this.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we provide tools to help students be successful in all realms of life. Those tools include such items as knowledge: of cultures, relationships, the need for continued learning, and reasoning.
DeleteSchools reinforce the culture in which we live. To be successful, students need to understand the world around them and have the tools necessary to participate. I do not see schools being able to provide all the knowledge necessary for success, especially since Lichtman indicated knowledge is doubling every year. What we can provide are the tools for students to become life-long learners, we are the role models for this.
ReplyDeleteWe are absolutely role models. We have to keep in mind that some students don't have positive role models at home. Sometimes we are the only positive part of their day. If we are not representing what good students/people/ citizens are... how are they to know? If we do not uphold the standards we set for them, will they ever buy in to what we are teaching?
DeleteI agree schools can not provide all of the knowledge needed for success but we are able to provide tools to guide them and support them through the en-devours in life.
DeleteSchools teach students how to access knowledge. Hopefully we role model social skills as well as educational skills. Schools provide an environment for students to practice team work, leadership and exploring career paths (art, music, CTE classes). Students observe how teachers and administration interact with one another. If their home life is a bit dysfunctional, they are seeing adults interact as problem solvers who can work together in spite of differences of opinion (or illness or sadness) for the first time.
ReplyDeleteI would like to agree that schools are places to model social skills, but you can model all you want and it not be effective unless the students are given the chance to try those modeled skills. I think to the elementary levels, more and more time is spent on academic standards than on topics such as social skills. Free play is becoming less and less and this time is where kids learn social rules. If teachers want to be able to teach that, they have to teach children how something should be done instead of how they did it. I have a student that doesn't have any language due to a hearing loss. He had some of the behaviors you would see in 2 year olds that don't have the language on dealing with behaviors they don't like (pushing/hitting because someone took their toy). His classroom teacher had to teach him that what he did was not good and he should say, 'excuse me' or 'I don't like that'. I know that took time out of other things, but it is something that needed to be done. As free play is switched to structured play as in math or literacy centers, the teacher has to be more vigilant at noticing misbehaviors and taking the time to teach correct behaviors before they become habits and gets that student into bigger trouble later on in life.
DeleteI agree with the statement that there is less and less time spent on teaching social skills. Those are life skills and I feel more time should be spent working on it. There are a lot of students that get no teaching of social/moral skills taught or modeled at home.
DeleteI agree with both of you that social skills are important - and unfortunately they are often not taught at home. Kudos to your teacher, Heather for tackling that task with your student.
DeleteI agree too that the social skills are so important. Unfortunately, we are becoming a society of "if only" instead of "that was prevented because..." just look at the crime rate among young people. Many times on the news, there is the "if only..." statement made and it really makes me sad. But then again, the schools can do only so much to teach kids social skills and if it's not reinforced at home, those kiddos seem to fail at life.
DeleteIf only... we all used a curriculum guide for social skills like we do for the areas.
DeleteI also agree with everyone’s comments about the need to teach a growing number of our students appropriate social skills. I listened to a speaker a couple years ago that spoke about social emotional learning. During his presentation, he made a point along the lines of something like this:
Delete-What happens when students come to school and can’t write their names??? We teach them! What happens when students come to school and can’t read??? We teach them! We provide tiered levels of intervention and specifically designed instruction throughout their entire day! What happens when students come to school and exhibit inappropriate behavior??? We…??? That’s right! Punish them! We put them in timeout, send them to the principal’s office, and take away their recess!
Sad, but soooooo true…
I think that many teachers find they are teaching social skills, character traits, and manners. They are also teaching skills that are important for education and for life. For instance, many children are learning their “kill and drill” math facts that need to be memorized. They are also working on handwriting and practicing it to get letter formation just right.
ReplyDeleteWithout realizing it, many teachers are reinforcing positive character traits and good manners. I think many teachers are teaching how to learn, whether they realize that or not. Students are learning what modality is their preferred learning style, and some teachers are even helping students understand which of the 7 intelligences is their highest.
One other item of importance in this digital age, is learning to evaluate sources. With so much information widely available on the internet, students need to learn how to find good sources and which sources are credible.
I like your thoughts on helping students figure out how they learn best - which goes back to being intentional and mindful of learning. I think your right in that school allows for practice but it is soooo much more than that!
DeleteMarcy - this is a really tough questions and I guess I haven't done enough "mindful" thinking on the topic.
ReplyDeleteI think schools lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning -- teaching students how to gain information, seek out answers, ask questions and form relationships. I like Jerrie's mention that is a reflection of the culture we live in. There are many opportunities for students (athletics, music, debate, FFA, etc) to keep them engaged in their interests and the learning process before them.
Excellent point about creating lifelong learners. Schools are so important to create the desire to learn new things.
DeleteI agree that schools lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning and that extra-curricular activities such as FFA (and others) encourage this as well as providing a venue to practice it.
DeleteI agree with you Jennifer about school laying the foundation. I sure hope that is what is actually happening in schools. If kiddos don't get that foundation from us, I'm afraid some of them won't ever get it.
DeleteIf schools no long are the source of information, they need to be the source on how to use various tools to find that information. As we know, not everything you read is true so students need to be taught on how to make sure their information is credible. Teachers can also pose problems and guide the students how to work through the problems.
ReplyDeleteI disagree that schools are no longer the purveyors of knowledge. That is the root of any type of school. The question really is what kind of knowledge are we are providing/supplying? I believe that is where schools are at a crossroads: tradition versus reality. The world used to be a big place because knowledge was limited. That is no longer the case, technology has made the world a much smaller place. I have heard the term "digital citizenship" a lot lately, teaching students how to access and use information appropriately. Schools can no longer simply provide knowledge to students, there is too much out there and not enough time to teach it! Knowledge itself is becoming an ever changing definition. I think at this point it's a mix. As long as we are still bound by standardized testing then we will never completely get away from being purveyors of knowledge. But schools can, and have to, incorporate other kinds of knowledge into the day. Knowledge like digital citizenship, creativity, problem solving, ethics, etc..
ReplyDeleteI believe schools are still the purveyors of knowledge. I know some students who would not learn much if their education was left up to them to research and learn. I feel schools will still be teaching information, but using different methods in order to teach it. Schools are a place for students to gather to learn from others and hopefully gain the skills needed for life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on this students are attaining their information through different methods and teachers have to adjust to the students as well . It is very scary to think that we have this information at our fingertips through tablets and mobile devices and even desktop computers and we can find any kind information that we need. Whereas most of us when we were in school we would have to take the time to go to the library and look it up in books. We have students out there that struggle with finding this knowledge even on the Internet and even more so it's even harder for them to find it flipping through pages in a textbook. Sometimes it just blows my mind that they won't take the time to look around in a book to find the information that they need and sometimes it's just right there in front their face but they just don't see it. But yet they ask the teachers or staff to help find that word in a chapter when it's in bold type and sticking out like a sore thumb.
DeletePurveyors of knowledge, I think it depends on the type of students we have in our schools that either embrace or don't embrace their education as being important. I think we have a mixture of both types of students in all our schools. We have students that get good grades work hard and want to be a success in life. Whereas we have other students that goes through school day without thinking ahead into their future they're just there because they're told to be there and they give subpar or below average work . It is sad that we have to make these types students do their school work and try their best, when they don't have the heart or the initiative to want to be there and become better citizens when they get out of school. These students have different priorities other than attaining their education because of their social economic status or their home life is not very good, so education is not a top priority for them. They do enough just to get by and then we move them on to the next grade level. I would like to believe that we are purveyors of knowledge for our students but I think we're only the purveyors of knowledge to the students that are wanting a better life for themselves. So these students work hard in school while the rest of the other students get left behind just by their own choices or the sacrifices they have to make that are out of our control when they're not in school.
ReplyDeleteI think schools will become a place to socialize children and for them to explore how they learn best.
ReplyDeleteSchools are here for foundational skills. They are here to provide the tools to use in daily living such as the skills of reading, math skills such as adding, subtracting and how to apply these skills to daily living. It provides opportunities for talents such as sports, band/choir, clubs, speech/debate and many others that lays a foundation for the kids to experience. It is about not only learning but learning through building relationships with peers and adults. It is about teaching the life long skills that will hopefully get them prepared for the outside world and prepare them for their future. I feel this is really a hard question and really got my mind to thinking.
ReplyDeleteI see that we still provide knowledge to students when they are in our classrooms. Daily we provide opportunities to kids to learn social skills, manage behaviors, learn skills to be successful young adults, and to be ready to go out in to society and provide knowledge and skills to those around them. We also help students figure out what their self-worth is through the opportunities to learn and grow we provide in the school setting.
ReplyDeleteI think that schools are still the purveyors of knowledge; however, I think that the knowledge that kids are learning in schools has changed over the years. It used to be that social skills and manners and home skills were taught at home. Now, as educators, we sometimes have to provide the kiddos with that knowledge as well. I think that the goal of most schools is to produce healthy, productive citizens when students graduate. Depending on the area that you teach in, you might be teaching different things to get students to be healthy, productive citizens. I guess I feel that if the school isn't providing at least some of that knowledge to kiddos, some of those kiddos will get so lost in the real world.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know that I necessarily agree with that statement. I still think schools are purveyors of knowledge. I mean, they might not always get all the information across in an ideal way to every student, but if we didn’t have schools, where would everyone be??? I mean, I can think of NUMEROUS students who would probably just be sitting on their mom and dad’s couch (or in front of a gaming system, or on Facebook, etc. etc.) for the rest of their lives if they didn’t have to be in school (or another academic environment). And while they’d probably learn something from that experience I guess, it definitely wouldn’t be the most worthwhile education. Also, besides academic information, schools provide an opportunity for social interaction and a means of developing those skills. I know I went off a little earlier about schools not being the best at this, but still, what they are providing is definitely better than nothing.
ReplyDelete