I found this to be a very interesting and creative story. I really enjoyed reading it. I think this story did a good job of representing education in our society.
In the story New-Fist realized that something needed to be done in order to change their future. He figured out ways to teach the children very useful skills. The children loved learning these skills. The skills that the children learned allowed them to live a healthy and safe life for some time. As the time past things around them changed. These changes affected every aspect of their lives. The skills that were learned were no longer needed. In the end some realized that new skills needed to be learned, but some of the older people thought that the old skills were still good because they were "timeless" skills.
I feel this story reflects education today. Many skills that the children learn are timeless. For example learning how to read, write, add, and subtract are timeless skills that every child needs to know. Even though these skills are very important it is very crucial in our ever changing society to expand on these skills and teach them in new and invented ways. By expanding on these skills we want to open our children's eyes to many more possibilities that will help them throughout life. You can't teach the same thing the same way for ever. As we as a society changes our needs and wants change too, so we need to be prepared for whatever life throws at us. Unfortunately, not all educators feel that way. Change happens very slow in education. Some teachers feel that if it isn't broken then don't fix it. In my opinion, even though it isn't broken why not try to find a way to improve it.
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4 comments:
I agree with your assertions that we need to always adapt our teaching for the needs of oru students. New First can sort of act as a role model for teachers to look at and strive to follow.
But where I think we'd be hard pressed to agree is what skills or content should be abandoned in favor of the new.
Kristin, I understand your points about the necessary skills. When I went to school they did not allow the use of calculators. Now all students use it freely. Students are not able to fully work out problems without technology. What happened to being able to do things mentally. In India, students are computing difficult problems while in Kindergarten.
I wonder about the calculator isssue all the time being a math teacher. Sure they can't be denied using this little everyday technology, but sometimes it can do more harm than the convenience it brings. Many of my students happily punch numbers and operations into the calculator and happy with the resulting answer. It has become my job to make them ask why - why is this answer valid? possible? It is not so much getting the right answers fast as this type of technology gives us, but knowing why the answer is correct in the first place. If we just trust the machine without thinking about common sense than 2 times 3 will often by 5...sorry I pressed the wrong key by accident...
Maybe New Fist just had excellent common sense!
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