Comments on: The Price of Disruption http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/2008/04/21/the-price-of-disruption/ Closing the Achievement Gap: Teaching Content Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:39:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: vital core http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/2008/04/21/the-price-of-disruption/#comment-3193 vital core Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:55:37 +0000 http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/?p=335#comment-3193 <i>Michael John Demiashkevich (with whose book The Activity School I am unabashedly in love) unravels the fallacies of “hands-on” learning</i> Thx for this reference. I put it on my reading list. Michael John Demiashkevich (with whose book The Activity School I am unabashedly in love) unravels the fallacies of “hands-on” learning

Thx for this reference. I put it on my reading list.

]]> By: Diana http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/2008/04/21/the-price-of-disruption/#comment-2896 Diana Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:59:33 +0000 http://www.coreknowledge.org/blog/?p=335#comment-2896 Great post. Your point about "engagement" vs. "content" cannot be made often enough. Teachers today are supposed to engage every single student--if you've got them all in groups making graphic organizers, each one holding a marker of a different color and therefore "accountable" to the task, you're doing your job, according to those on high. If, on the other hand, you're leading a lively class discussion on a work of literature, and some kids are talking among themselves, you're at fault for not engaging all the students and making them all "accountable." No matter that the work of literature is vastly more interesting than the graphic organizer. Graphic organizers have their place, but all too often they oversimplify ideas and are used to generate busywork. The completed organizers (with very little in them, usually) are then posted on the wall. If the teacher has been attending her PDs and knows her strategies, she then takes the students on a "gallery walk" so that they can admire the non-activity that took place and everyone can feel good. Michael John Demiashkevich (with whose book <i>The Activity School</i> I am unabashedly in love) unravels the fallacies of "hands-on" learning: "Actual handling of things and book-learning can be rightly glorified or debased, in each instance, only on the virtue of the case. Reading may be much more of self-activity or experience, that is acquisition of meanings, suggestions, than motor activity." Great post. Your point about “engagement” vs. “content” cannot be made often enough. Teachers today are supposed to engage every single student–if you’ve got them all in groups making graphic organizers, each one holding a marker of a different color and therefore “accountable” to the task, you’re doing your job, according to those on high.

If, on the other hand, you’re leading a lively class discussion on a work of literature, and some kids are talking among themselves, you’re at fault for not engaging all the students and making them all “accountable.” No matter that the work of literature is vastly more interesting than the graphic organizer.

Graphic organizers have their place, but all too often they oversimplify ideas and are used to generate busywork. The completed organizers (with very little in them, usually) are then posted on the wall. If the teacher has been attending her PDs and knows her strategies, she then takes the students on a “gallery walk” so that they can admire the non-activity that took place and everyone can feel good.

Michael John Demiashkevich (with whose book The Activity School I am unabashedly in love) unravels the fallacies of “hands-on” learning: “Actual handling of things and book-learning can be rightly glorified or debased, in each instance, only on the virtue of the case. Reading may be much more of self-activity or experience, that is acquisition of meanings, suggestions, than motor activity.”

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