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  Kathleen Hamilton

  Apr 28, 2020 at 14:00 in United States

  Agreed! What are you reading right now?
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    Eileen Forrestal

    Apr 30, 2020 at 12:32 in Sligo, Ireland.

    You're Not Listening by Kate Murphy. Fascinating book about listening, and how little we actually do (despite what we think!) A totally underdeveloped, underestimated and underused skill in our hectic, noisy world.
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    Deborah Cantin

    May 1, 2020 at 01:43 in T6T1H1

    I disagree that knowledge is power. Knowledge is only power when you put it into action. I can know a lot of things, but if I don't use that knowledge, I may as well be daydreaming.
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  Rita Juse-Cirkse

  Apr 30, 2020 at 05:40 in Internet

  No "should's" is my world. But I agree that reading and sharing are wonderful tools. Reading "Living Beyond Distraction" by Gary M. Douglas and Dr. Dain Heer and learning a lot right now

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  Lance Box

  Apr 23, 2020 at 02:31 in Australia

  Yuri Quintana has review the state of internet-based learning in his piece at: https://web.archive.org/web/20160330072445/http://www.isoc.org/inet96/proceedings/c1/c1_4.htm This is dated because it does not seem to consider the effectiveness of Zoom and other like platforms to solve some of the challenges that he lists in his analysis. In short, Quintana is relatively positive about online delivery of education, as long as we consider and work to cater for those who are challenged by some aspects of the delivery mode. Well worth the read, though dated, as mentioned.

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  Lance Box

  Mar 29, 2020 at 04:44 in Australia

  A Quality Education, therefore, necessitates a mutual sharing of knowledge, skills, insights and wisdom. It is not a one-way knowledge dump.

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  Lisa Addy

  Mar 26, 2020 at 01:10 in Paraparaumu, New Zealand

  Thank you I have just shared this to my facebook
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  Unknown user

  Mar 29, 2020 at 07:59

  this is fab and will be sharing to my facebook and also using for my son in evenings.

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  Lisa Addy

  Mar 26, 2020 at 01:10 in Paraparaumu, New Zealand

  Thankyou I have just shared this with my facebook friends.

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  Lance Box

  Mar 15, 2020 at 06:52 in Australia

  Thanks Karen. This is a very useful article.
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  Chef J. Noah Martin II

  Mar 18, 2020 at 18:31 in Spokane, WA 99201, USA

  Self awareness is great this may help me past my own procrastination.

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  Lance Box

  Mar 9, 2020 at 20:24 in Australia

  "The education-industrial complex is structured around organizing children by age. This is a bad idea for so many reasons. "First among them is that this notion is based on a false assumption that young people of the same age have roughly the same skill level in subjects across the curriculum. Clearly, this is not the case. Even the maturity level between genders is a schism. Likewise, different students with different interests and interest levels have wildly different abilities. "But grouping by age remains an "objective" easy criterion, one whose inaccuracy has done nothing to minimize its use. "More importantly, putting children in groups of "peers," organizing students to emphasize their social sameness, necessarily forces them to emphasize and exaggerate their differences. Stop for a moment to imagine the Kafkaesque nightmare of being part of a community that was organized because someone thought you all were interchangeable. You would spend a lot of energy differentiating yourself through your actions and your dress and ultimately through forming social cliques. "Monocultures don't work. They are the product of a dated manufacturing mentality of mass production, and are seldom found in nature. That is why the waste from a deer in the wild enriches the soil, whereas sewage from a massive pig farm causes a health risk to the communities that live downstream. "In childhood learning, diversity of ages and experiences allows everyone to find their strengths in a vibrant ecosystem. Adults and kids should interact. Older people can mentor younger ones. Younger people can use their strength and vitality, each of them wanting to contribute and find a role to fill uniquely." A 'Quality Education', therefore, will be conducted in an environment where there is a diverse range of ages in the cohort that is learning together. The common thread in the cohort would be interest, not age.
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  Flourish Balami

  Apr 13, 2020 at 08:45

  I totally agree.
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  Lance Box

  Apr 13, 2020 at 10:39 in Australia

  Thank you for taking the time to make a comment. Keep safe and have a great day!

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  Lance Box

  Mar 5, 2020 at 22:07 in Australia

  His full comment is worth noting: "No matter what his or her age, when a child has a serious and productive interest in something, do anything possible to feed it. Be the perfect enabler. Drive anywhere. Fly anywhere. Rearrange schedules. Get or otherwise provide access to the supplies and props (and animals and vehicles and equipment and ...). Find the experts, communities, even mentors. (Eventually you'll want to find people who can provide real and credible feedback.) Just as importantly, protect the child from the trivial work inevitably and often mindlessly and reflexively foisted on him or her by others. A year absolutely dedicated to a single area of deep passion is better than the potpourri of modem curricula. Some care needs to be taken not to subvert the interest or overwhelm it. And admit your own humble status as not being an expert. Childhood passion based on curiosity and real interest is one of the most powerful forces. This is what eventually shapes industries and nations." If we agree that this looks like how a quality education might look, then we must agree that this cannot be done within the parameters of schools and schooling; it is an element of "Quality Education" that has to be pursued in an unschooling context. Agree? Disagree?

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  Lance Box

  Feb 27, 2020 at 18:10 in Australia

  He writes: "...class size should be about five. This allows common presentations, peer-to-peer conversations, and one-to-one coach-to-student interactions. ... with this ideal class size comes a redefinition of class, from 'entire community all day' to 'time of focused learning'. From the point of view of the education [I would say 'schooling'] industry, fifteen is a calculated target -- a stretch goal for more funding without actually meeting the needs of the students. Once you get past their framing, the ideal number is much different." Five is an interesting number. It enables a team to be assembled that has representatives from each of the energies, and an extra to ensure that there is a good balance of profiles in the mix. Perhaps 'Quality Education' could be delivered in the context of learners coming together in learning teams, and the teams being assigned problems and challenges that they get to solve. The coach would function as a supply of resources, when necessary, and would supply leading questions and suggestions when there were blocks in the learning experience. These teams could change from learning situation to learning situation, and provide an opportunity for young people to find others with a common passion around common interests. Students could be working on several or only one learning opportunity at a time. This idea has logistics challenges, and would not necessarily support the top-heavy administration infrastructure of a regular school. However, if this kind of education was delivered in the context of a micro-school, that did not have layers of administration to support with the funding, then quality education might be a reality. There would certainly be an absence of the the negative dynamics when you have a large cohort of age-graded students, which always degenerates to the lowest common denominator.

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  Lance Box

  Feb 25, 2020 at 04:38 in Australia

  Written after reflecting upon my own schooling journey to the top of the tree.

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  Lance Box

  Feb 24, 2020 at 21:10 in Australia

  "Those leading the education-industrial system have two incompatible goals: "On the one hand, they are ever more following the dated and disproved top-down "management" theories of metrics, standardization, and short-term accountability. "On the other hand, those at the national level who track skills, because they are terrified at the drop in mathematics and science competencies in today's students, are trying to change schools to better develop our nation's capabilities in these disciplines. "The truth here is that for schools, getting out of the way may be the best thing they can do. Students, left alone, will build things. They will create unique, surprising ways to meet specific needs that often only they understand (even if the need is to enable an elaborate prank). "Building can be done with computer code or lumber or ingredients or fabric. And building is the opposite of consuming, which is done with movies, textbooks, restaurant meals, most video games, or lectures. "The next generation of engineers and scientists are not going to be the ones who are the best "students" who memorize a given week's lists of tables and equations before heading off to history class where they do the same with historical figures and dates. In fact, it will be a failing graduate school that draws from this lot. The next generation of engineers and scientists will be the ones who are skipping the class but painfully and meticulously gathering the building blocks in their secret workshop and putting together something unprecedented." Now this sounds to me like an element of Quality Education as it should be.

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