ysabetwordsmith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2022-09-24 11:37 pm
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2022-09-24 11:37 pm
School Without Homework
... and a 98% college acceptance rate.
They're actually doing a number of things right.
Students are mentored and encouraged to learn from their mistakes, improving their grades over time.
This is how life works. If you're not making any mistakes, you're not learning, you're coasting. And if you can't learn from your mistakes, you won't make any progress either. So learning from mistakes is one of the most crucial learning skills of all.
Students actively engage in hands-on, project-based work, which is more akin to life in the "real world."
This is also how life works. So if students can't take abstract knowledge and apply it in practical situations, they won't have much success in life. If education is all abstract, and students are not shown how is is useful to them, then few of them will learn much -- mostly the nerds who consider all knowledge potentially useful even if it has no obvious use at the moment. We're mental packrats that way. Most people aren't.
If you present "calculate the area" as an abstract, few students will care. But "calculate how much carpet / paint you need to redecorate your room" is a task they might actually do and would probably enjoy, and you need to know the area for that. Motivated students will learn more. Hell, gamers will teach themselves statistics so they can minmax a character. It has a use they want, so they learn it.
“If we want to truly prepare our kids to have a chance to live their best life, we need to radically rethink the education we grew up with, and the message it’s sending,” Tavenner says.
Well, it was originally designed to produce factory workers and is now largely redesigned to produce prison inmates. So yes, replacing that would be excellent.
At Summit, students are given the opportunity to change a grade over time if they show continuous improvement.
So then, instead of a grade measuring a one-time performance, it becomes a measure of overall skill with a given task. That's useful -- though me, I'd keep a record of the earlier scores to track progress.
Each student is mentored weekly by an assigned teacher. The mentors stay with students throughout their academic career, providing continued support and offering parents a constant point of contact. According to Tavenner, research has found that mentoring improves a student’s sense of belonging and success beyond grade school.
Of course that works. Humans tend to form bonds and perform better when they feel like they belong. Around tween or teen years, it's a big benefit to have a new adult that they didn't grow up with, who can relate to them at their current age and teach them more. Used to be uncles and aunts mostly, but sometimes a craft master. This is close enough for grabs, although it's vitally important to have a good match if you're not switching teachers every year.
Those mentors help kids actively engage in their hands-on, project-based work. Through these projects, students may design a house to put principles of geometry to work, grow their own plants, or build a model rocket.
Good idea.
In addition to its regular curriculum, Summit offers an eight week guided learning program where the students choose the field they’re interested in and get to ask the big questions they want to ask — a freedom not always found in the current public education system.
This is critical. First, if you want students to learn a career and work a job later, they need to know what they're good at. Second, if they don't get to learn things they actually care about, they're a lot more likely to just coast through life because all they've been allowed to learn is being pushed around by more powerful people. Then when you want them to work they are neither willing nor able. Blame the deciders.
“When you give kids responsibility, they become invested because they actually know that what they are doing means something and that it’s dependable and accountable and all of that leads to growth,” Rett says.
Duh.
Summit’s approach to education may not work for every student — and Tavenner says that’s ok. She says asking whether an approach to learning can be applied across the board to all students isn’t the right question to be asking.
“The question we should be asking ourselves is, ‘does what work? For whom? Under what circumstances?’” Tavenner says.
Very astute.
They're actually doing a number of things right.
Students are mentored and encouraged to learn from their mistakes, improving their grades over time.
This is how life works. If you're not making any mistakes, you're not learning, you're coasting. And if you can't learn from your mistakes, you won't make any progress either. So learning from mistakes is one of the most crucial learning skills of all.
Students actively engage in hands-on, project-based work, which is more akin to life in the "real world."
This is also how life works. So if students can't take abstract knowledge and apply it in practical situations, they won't have much success in life. If education is all abstract, and students are not shown how is is useful to them, then few of them will learn much -- mostly the nerds who consider all knowledge potentially useful even if it has no obvious use at the moment. We're mental packrats that way. Most people aren't.
If you present "calculate the area" as an abstract, few students will care. But "calculate how much carpet / paint you need to redecorate your room" is a task they might actually do and would probably enjoy, and you need to know the area for that. Motivated students will learn more. Hell, gamers will teach themselves statistics so they can minmax a character. It has a use they want, so they learn it.
“If we want to truly prepare our kids to have a chance to live their best life, we need to radically rethink the education we grew up with, and the message it’s sending,” Tavenner says.
Well, it was originally designed to produce factory workers and is now largely redesigned to produce prison inmates. So yes, replacing that would be excellent.
At Summit, students are given the opportunity to change a grade over time if they show continuous improvement.
So then, instead of a grade measuring a one-time performance, it becomes a measure of overall skill with a given task. That's useful -- though me, I'd keep a record of the earlier scores to track progress.
Each student is mentored weekly by an assigned teacher. The mentors stay with students throughout their academic career, providing continued support and offering parents a constant point of contact. According to Tavenner, research has found that mentoring improves a student’s sense of belonging and success beyond grade school.
Of course that works. Humans tend to form bonds and perform better when they feel like they belong. Around tween or teen years, it's a big benefit to have a new adult that they didn't grow up with, who can relate to them at their current age and teach them more. Used to be uncles and aunts mostly, but sometimes a craft master. This is close enough for grabs, although it's vitally important to have a good match if you're not switching teachers every year.
Those mentors help kids actively engage in their hands-on, project-based work. Through these projects, students may design a house to put principles of geometry to work, grow their own plants, or build a model rocket.
Good idea.
In addition to its regular curriculum, Summit offers an eight week guided learning program where the students choose the field they’re interested in and get to ask the big questions they want to ask — a freedom not always found in the current public education system.
This is critical. First, if you want students to learn a career and work a job later, they need to know what they're good at. Second, if they don't get to learn things they actually care about, they're a lot more likely to just coast through life because all they've been allowed to learn is being pushed around by more powerful people. Then when you want them to work they are neither willing nor able. Blame the deciders.
“When you give kids responsibility, they become invested because they actually know that what they are doing means something and that it’s dependable and accountable and all of that leads to growth,” Rett says.
Duh.
Summit’s approach to education may not work for every student — and Tavenner says that’s ok. She says asking whether an approach to learning can be applied across the board to all students isn’t the right question to be asking.
“The question we should be asking ourselves is, ‘does what work? For whom? Under what circumstances?’” Tavenner says.
Very astute.
no subject
Yay!