Friday, May 29, 2009

The "dr droock" Magic Bullet to fix High School education at the bottom of the pyramid

Move the teachers from classroom to classroom, instead of the kids.
Versioned customized Print connected to the wireless Cloud, instead of textbooks, will help. The opportunity for Print is that if used correctly it allows the creation of a still small place.

From the LA Times:
American Indian's administrators believe that one of the secrets to success in middle school is having one instructor teach all subjects except physical education. The goal is to have that teacher stay with the same children all three years

Why:
1. Too much time on task is wasted by the kids and too much time on task is wasted by teachers and admins managing hundreds of kids going from room to room.
2. If the kids stay put they will create their own natural safe place in school. Learning can only happen in safe, comfortable places.

The hard part:
1. Creating flexible ability groups has to happen in the classroom not at the admin level.
2. Teachers have to become great at managing projects and being ready to take advantage of those ineffable, unpredictable teaching moments.
3. Teachers have to share the power over the time and space of the classroom.

The principles describing why this should work apply to anyone too busy being busy to do the jobs they are supposed to do in the first place. The short story is that no one can learn logical thought if they don't have the time to practice it. The other part is that learning when you are afraid is well nigh impossible.

It's why for most meetings, most of the time spent is time wasted. And why Warren Buffet is successful and why Mentored Apprenticeships is the solution to the Community College training problem and why Trade Shows should be reorganized and textbooks reinvented. It's also the reason that "educating the customer" is a waste of time.

It's also the reason that "No Drama" Obama is just the right person at just the right time at just the right place.

It's all about the Communication Ecology. The point is how does communication work within the thought model of
Behavioral economics which does justice to what man is really like, both individually and collectively. We are prone to laziness, greed and fear. There is a weak tendency for a minority of individuals to break free from the fads and fashions of men, and pursue profit exclusively. Remember, thinking hurts, so people conserve on it, unless the reward for thinking exceeds the pain. from the Aleph Blog

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