I’ve taught 7th grade for 17 years, and every Friday we play a review game in class on that day. The game is usually based on whatever sport is in season (right now, it’s baseball) and win-loss records are kept on the wall for all to see.
Rote memorization earns your team points. The more you can memorize, the better you help your team. They have to know what they’ve been taught. Everything’s fair game, from stuff that I taught the previous day, to stuff that I taught in August.
Of course, they also learn a good lesson about the dynamics of working in a group, i.e., that working in a group pretty much sucks, because there’s always knuckle-heads that everyone else has to drag along. I never attempt group work for any serious assignment, because I know that the work I would get would only reflect the abilities of the best student in the group. The others would just have that kid do their part for them.
I’ve seen kids who had no motivation to do anything decide that they weren’t going to be the object of scorn and ridicule from their classmates any more and actually learn the information.
Not only that, when they pick new teams, the lazy kids get to experience the humiliation of being passed over for the hard workers.
By the end of the year, they realize the reason that they know all that they know is because they had to COMPETE, and that, if they let up, someone else will move ahead of them.
That’s possibly the best lesson they can learn, anyway.
I’ve been teaching nine years. I’m using your ideas. Thank you.
That’s possibly the best lesson they can learn, anyway.
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In every adult work and social environment in which I have been involved pleasant cooperation, reliability, dependability, and especially **competency** were the qualities that were valued. While there may have been competition with outside business competitors, competition within the group was NOT helpful in any manner.
While I agree with you that your methods are likely effective in helping children learn in the typical classroom environment, but, fundamentally, is it natural or normal for children to be segregated from the larger society, in prison-like buildings, and confined for large parts of the day to socialization with children all of the same age?
Would an adult willingly place himself in a situation where he would be “humiliated” and subjected to “scorn”? If an adult would find it very difficult to cope with this type of social abuse, why on earth would we think it is good for children? Perhaps it is the environment itself that is responsible for the lack of motivation.
Much of the “socialization” learned in our prison-like government government schools is prison-gang survival and coping strategies. These dysfunctional habits must be **unlearned** and replaced with healthy interpersonal skills if success is to be achieved in the workplace, family, and larger society. Thankfully, humans are highly adaptable. Most make the transition. Sadly, some do not.
If our Founding Fathers were to walk through a typical government school they would be horrified at how we treat children. When they spoke of education they likely had their own educations in mind. That would include:
**homeschool with tutoring as needed from relatives, friends, and some paid tutors.
** very small dame schools in the homes of neighbors
** very small one room schools organized by parents that included children of all ages
** Apprenticeships for older children, and home-based academies to prepare the brightest ( who could afford it) for entrance into college as **young** teens.