Many times, when people talk about education, they relate it to the matter of politics and economy, but mostly and most importantly humanity. This is because education is the most fundamental building blocks of human development. It is a formative process of passing on the knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to the next. An impact of education is greatly. When given the opportunity to learn, people tend to contribute to the development of their lives. Once their lives are improved, people can then contribute to their communities and their countries, which finally affects in the betterment of this world. Therefore, it is essential to look at this matter on a global context.



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Friday, February 5, 2010

CONNECTING to and for STUDENTS

By Kalyakorn Naksompop
Written on February 5, 2010

A professor of mine mentioned in his class that for some reasons, as students move on to high school level, they’re expected to be good at everything. I found this very true and could totally relate to what he said. One very interesting point was made about how each subject are taught separately and not connected to each other. It is very obvious that the curriculum for each subject area is usually designed to fit the content of that particular subject but not really to each other. Yet, high school students are expected to be good in all areas even when everyone knows that there’s no way people can be perfect. It’s only natural for a person to be expertise in one or two things, good in a few others, and has absolutely no ideas about the rest. Therefore, it would only make sense if the school helps its students by connecting each subject. Then, students who thought they are only capable of being artists can realize that they may have a tiny part of themselves that are too while students who are scientists can learn more about their musical side, and the mathematicians know that they too can be athletes.

One thing teachers must remember is nobody is perfect. It’s ok for students to be bad at some certain subjects that are not their fortes. In the end, a person doesn’t need to be good at everything to succeed, isn’t that true? Do we really think that Albert Einstein can compete with Michael Jordan in basketball? Or do we really think that Paul McCartney is an even better chef than Gordon Ramsay? Well, who knows? It may be true, but does anybody care if Einstein can bounce the ball or McCartney knows how to pan fry a duck? I don’t believe so because we only look at their best capabilities and we admire them for that.

Having this connection not only helps students in relating what they learn in different classes, but also helps them to understand how this knowledge relates to life outside of school. This is because students are then able to see that knowledge of one subject is not only about that subject, but is possible to be applied to other subject areas in school. Hopefully, as they practice this ability to connect often enough, students can as well learn to use this very same principal later in life.

Somehow, as we discussed about connecting and applying knowledge of one subject to another, I could feel that there’s a link between this idea and the theory about Multiple Intelligence by Howard Gardner. Gardner purposed that there are at least eight types of intelligences that he recognized, including 1) linguistic, 2) logical-mathematical, 3) spatial, 4) bodily-kinesthetic, 5) musical, 6) interpersonal, 7) intrapersonal, and 8) Naturalist. Although most of the books we found only talk about these 8 intelligences, I remember an interview with Vanessa Race, one of Howard Gardner’s students (who happened to become Thai celebrity for her knowledge on such subject) on Thai national TV a few years ago. Vanessa accentuated during the interview that her teacher said these are only 8 intelligences that he had recognized, but he suggested that there should be more areas of human’s intelligences since he strongly believed that humans are capable of so much more.

Having heard about this theory reminded me even more how a teacher should use various techniques in teaching a subject. We (educators) always talk about how different students have different learning styles. Is it possible that they have different learning styles because they have different types of intelligences? If so, is it right to stick to one style of teaching that encourages only linguistic or logical-mathematical intelligences? I don’t believe so. This is exactly why we should develop such curriculum that allows students with different intelligences to be able to learn at their bests. One way is to create a curriculum that connects each and every subject. Therefore, students know that they can apply the subject that they are good at to other subjects that are not their fields. Meaning, they can use their intelligences, which are not necessary linguistic or logical-mathematical, to learn in all areas.

After all, every student should have equal right to access their learning. How can we say that we provide every student equally if we only use curriculum that’s only suitable for students with certain types of intelligences. Isn’t it true?


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REFERENCES

Armstrong, T. ‘Multiple Intelligences.’ In Thomas ArmstrongRetrieved February 3, 2010 from http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm

Race, V. (September 5, 2007). An interview by TV show ‘Ta Sawang’, broadcasted on ModernNine TV. In Wisdom Inside. Retrieved February 3, 2010 from http://th.wisdominside.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=377&Itemid=67

Smith, M. K. (2002, 2008). 'Howard Gardner and multiple intelligences'. In INFED: the encyclopedia of informal education. Retrieved February 3, 2010 from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm

*Illustration from http://www.childfirst.com.cn/gifs/en_soundcurr05.gif
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THE SUN IS GREEN

If I say the sun is green, what would you say?

Of course, if you have seen the sun, you would probably think I'm crazy because the sun is supposed to be red or yellow. But if you really look at it, you would probably see the same thing I'm seeing. It's not the sun that is green, but it is my imagination that made it green. It is not the fact, it's just a thought.

However, that is not the way we run the classrooms, isn't it? It is obvious that the education now is developed out of knowledge of today. We we made assumptions of how education should be using researches and philosophies, not to forget about traditions of the education. Nonetheless, what we found today will become history as soon as the sun sets, which basically means that we developed the system of education based on history and beliefs. Yet, what we are doing as educators is to prepare our students for the future. The future that is yet to come. The future that even we are uncertain of. The future where what is right today maybe wrong then. Who knows, the sun may really turn green tomorrow.

Thus, the question is, what knowledge do we have to pass on to our students?

Brutally, the answer is probably no, we don’t actually have any of today knowledge that we are sure to be relevant 30 years from now. Then, what is our job? What is our role as educators, particularly as teachers? Is teacher a lecturer? Is teacher an instructor? Is teacher a facilitator? Well, if we don't have absolute right knowledge to teach, what can we lecture them about?

In this case, being a facilitator seems to be a little more appropriate for our job description. The key is probably to facilitate the learning for learning. In other words, we should equip our students with foundation for their life as a whole, where learning can continue throughout life in a self-directed manner. “The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people,” Ayn Rand. Our job is to facilitate students to develop their motivation in learning as well as their abilities to process the learning.

As mentioned above that the task is to implant the facility for learning, what is it that we have to do to facilitate the learning? Allow students to develop the personal growth, perhaps? Yes, there is the system where we still have to provide information and facts from text books, but do you think we should also leave some room for students to be themselves, express their thoughts and play with it a little bit? Meanwhile, they may have time to look back at themselves, learn about who they are, know what they want, and would eventually learn by themselves that learning is one way to achieve their goal.

As reading this, some people may start to nod their heads as educators around the world are also starting to appreciate the thought of educating the whole child. Not only we have to focus on literacy, we also need to focus on creativity, as Sir Ken Robinson said, "creativity now is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status." Unfortunately, though many schools and teachers are aware of this fact, the accentuation of creativity is yet not widely practiced. In 1999, a report on the importance of promoting creativity and culture in schools were sent to English government. A year later, a response made by the government, agreeing with the report. Today, "there has certainly been cultural activity in schools but even the strongest champions of creative and cultural education would have to admit that the report - called All Our Futures - has not dominated schools policy" (Baker, 2009). This is just one example of how the idea is already out there but has not been practiced.

Now, a much simpler example. We sure do provide enough time for students to practice on reading, writing, calculating and all those, but do we leave enough space for students to practice their creativity in classrooms? Do we have enough room for them to think and practice their imagination?

I remember an art class I had in kindergarten. The teacher taught me to paint the sun with red, water with blue, and mountains with green. I don’t remember if anyone asked why, but we were told it is what is it. This is the simplest example of how we are taught to be so limited in our imagination. A lot of times, education does not leave room for the learners to see what “it” can be because they were told what it is or what it should be even before they can start thinking about it. I was told the sun is red even before I could think about what color the sun could be. Once information is given by someone you believe to know more, in many cases, you just assume that it is the fact. No more questions needed to be raised, no more thinking needed to be processed because the answer is already there for you.

But even if I really thought the sun was green, do you think I would dare not to paint the sun red? The funny thing is we often hear someone says, "everyone is born creative." Isn't that true? Don't you agree that children are always creative? They always find ways to be so imaginative. Is it possible that because they "know less"? Since children know less, they see less boundaries when it comes to thinking or imagination. We were probably used to be as creative and as imaginative when we were smaller. Somehow, through education, we were put into, as Robinson said, right-or-wrong system and all the capability of being creative just seemed to fade away as we became someone who's afraid of being wrong. "If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original" (Robinson, 2006). Nonetheless, that is how the education is until these days. We were told what is right and what is wrong. We were told the sun is red and the water is blue. What happens if you do the wrong things, you know that teacher can deduct your points and you would fail. And you if you keep on doing the wrong things, you would keep on failing and failing until you can become a failure. That is scary. It is always scary to be a failure. Then, it becomes a loop of not being able to think freely and be creative because you're afraid to fail. And what will happen to your creativity?

Well, if painting the sun green should make me be a failure, then I would always use red and only red.


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By Kalyakorn Naksompop
Written on December 6, 2009
(original article)

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