Posted on 11/28/2007 6:09:47 AM PST by shrinkermd
For decades now, psychology and pedagogy researchers have been debating the impact of competition on young people's self-esteem, with those wary of thought competition taking the lead.
"We don't want kids to compete individually, put themselves in vulnerable positions as individuals," explains a leading administrator. "They can compete within teams," explains another. "So the focus is on community building rather than on personal value."
But what about Sam's sense of personal value? Aren't human beings fabulously varied in their gifts and sensibilities? Excellent teamwork can be important, but is it the only admirable achievement? Should any school in the United States prevent broader acknowledgment of a young, creative mathematician?
Mel Levine, a professor at the University of North Carolina and one of the foremost authorities in the country on how children learn, believes the impact of the collaborative education movement has been devastating to an entire generation. When students are rewarded for participation rather than achievement, Dr. Levine suggests, they don't have a strong sense of what they are good at and what they're not. Thus older members of Generation Y might be in for quite a shock when they show up for work at their first jobs. "They expect to be immediate heroes and heroines. They expect a lot of feedback on a daily basis. They expect grade inflation, they expect to be told what a wonderful job they're doing," says Dr. Levine.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Cooperation isn´t learned in school. What is learned in¨”team projects” in government schools is how to slack off and let someone else do all the work.
It is in normal neighborhood play that children learn how to cooperate. It is sad but children today have less and less unstructured, Lesly supervised time for free play with other children, or unstructured time alone merely to day dream. They are too often in day care, in school, or in organized team sports or other after school activities.
One of the major reasons homeschoolers are enjoying so much success is that they have ample time for unstructured play.
I took business management and computer science.
well, what you’re saying is true...but the sad truth is that leaders will be punished if their subordinates screw up. An engineer has to work as a team. I don’t think there’s any way out of this. Part of the job is finding a way to get the slackers to work and you’re not going to be able to learn how to do that from math and physics textbooks.
I’ll tell you how you get slackers to work, they get out of school and find their paycheck depends on their efforts and then they work.
I’m talking about the slackers that end up working with you
Heck, even 3 and 4 year olds know the score. It doesn’t matter if it’s unofficial, and that the coaches, refs, and parents don’t announce it. The kids know the score.
That’s the scary part.
“They recently began a fall soccer program in my area that competes with the one they already have in the spring...but with no scoring, just for “fun.” My son wanted to play but I won’t let him until the spring one. I know I’m probably being a fuddy duddy but the idea of playing a soccer game without keeping score is asinine. What’s he learning? He already knows how to play...but to what end?”
Practice, practice, practice. Besides, by a certain age, the kids know what the score is and who wins. And if they don’t, you can be sure the parents will tell them.
My son’s very earliest leagues were “no score” leagues, but those kids were out there banging shins and having a ball.
If you are the manager, why are they still working for you?
It happens when you clean your room together, make dinner together, set up the Christmas tree together, go hunting together, ...
If you can co-operate and work together on a problem with your own brothers and sisters, I daresay, you can get along with just about anybody.
you have to be able to tell them that if they continue to slack off they will be fired. Yes, it’s not always easy for someone to stick to their guns and say no to a person, especially a close friend.
In other situations they aren’t really slacking off but need to be motivated to achieve better results. And in other situations, they are slacking off just enough to drive you nuts but they are still too valuable to lose.
As a homeschooler, you have the freedom to choose what is best and you know the likes and dislikes of your child better than any govt. agency. Curriculum is not a magic word or device. It is a tool used in teaching. Use whichever tools work best to teach your child.
Right now, even as I type, my senior English students are engaged in a notetaking exercise so they can better write research papers. Here’s my two cents for the two minutes I have.
Education’s overall theme for the past 70 years has been “our schools are worse than ever.” The panic brought on by the thought that schools are a complete failure and hurting our children leads to the quick fix, also known as the “fad of the day.” I’ve seen a couple of them, and I’ve only been teaching for nine years.
Seen in that light, this editorial is just one of a long string of articles about the failures of American schools and youth. If my memory serves me correctly, schools and youth were once being destroyed by comic books, rock’n’roll, and lack of science education in our fight against the Communists. Then there was the moment when schools and youth were being destroyed by a lack of self-esteem and illegal drugs. Then there was the time when our kids needed to “work in groups.” On and on it goes.
Fortunately, there are several factors working against all this. First, we have human nature, which operates on its own outside of fads, ideology, intervention, and academic ideals. Human nature always asserts itself, no matter what the fad of the day might be. Second, we have families, and I can tell right now I’m teaching my son at home some things that are very much at odds with the prevailing wisdom in our school curriculum. Tough. I want the best for my son, and most parents feel that way, too. Third, there are many teachers who basically ignore the fad of the day and actually teach students using time-honored methods which focus on academic excellence. This is the only time you’ll hear me express appreciation for tenure; as long as my kids are scoring well on the standardized tests, no one really bothers me. Otherwise, I think tenure is an abomination.
Sometimes I look at the educational establishment as the American version of a Soviet enterprise, with top-down management, a clumsy command-and-control intereaction with students and teachers, and, of course, shifting ideologies which demand strict allegience or else you’ll face ostracism. Of course, just like the old Soviet enterprises, most of us operate little backyard gardens that feed the masses, give lip service to the bureaucrats, and ignore the ideology.
Man, it would be nice for someone somewhere to finally implement Milton Friedman’s school vouchers concept.
You got that right! My four homeschooled kids just sit around the house wondering why it is that they don't fit in and don't have any friends and couldn't get into college. /sarc
It is not really "taught" so much as practiced and I do remember working on projects in high school with other students (1970s) so it is not a new development.
Your error is in thinking that homeschoolers do not have that opportunity. The classroom is not the only place to learn academics. The classroom is not the only place to learn how to get along with others. The classroom is not the only place to learn how to work cooperatively on a common goal with others.
I have seen these things happen in all kinds of ways - traditional school is not the only answer, in fact it often is the worst choice among many. My memory of working on group projects or labs is of the kids who really did not care about being there letting the ones who did care do all the work. (I admit, I have been on both sides of that equation!)
I have been homeschooling for over 15 years and three out of my four kids have graduated and gone on to be successful in college and life so far. I would say the best cooperative learning my boys got was in Boy Scouts, particularly working on Eagle projects, their own and others'. Their dual-enrollment junior college classes - not so much.
ping for later.
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Children need plenty of time for play. It is through normal, loosely supervised, unstructured, play that children learn cooperation with others, problem solving, sharing, consensus building, and learning to lead as well as follow.
One of the most important reasons to choose homeschooling is the opportunity to play with children of varying ages, their siblings, as well as develop friendships with older adults such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and trusted neighbors.
Sadly, children are being placed in highly structured institutional settings at younger and younger ages. In these formal day care and school settings children have little opportunity for long hours of loosely supervised and unstructured play. What we will reap is a disaster!
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