I realized if there's anything I've been doing my whole life, it's teaching myself. I've been getting deep into the "edupunk" movement, headed up by Jim Groom, fueled by books like DIY U and manned by anyone frustrated with traditional education and those of us that just do it naturally.
I'm really...feeling this. I've often wished I were born into a time pre-formal education where people just learned and experimented on their own.
I've been kicking around ideas of how I can contribute to this change and develop my own use of the process, because I genuinely believe in it.
2 comments:
Soo weird. I was talking with one of the high school kids in class today and he was lamenting the time constraints of school, jiu jitsu, and family. I told him how frustrated I was for the majority of school, and that when I graduated college, I could not believe how many people went straight through to Masters, PhD, etc.
I BOLTED from school the day I graduated college. I was so massively sick of the drone-like tone of school. The, "go read this book, memorize the contents and then mark the right answer on the test..." School never seemed like a forum truly conducive to learning.
Traveling, reading travel narrative, food narrative, philosophy, history, visiting the Statue of Liberty, bussing through Mexico, walking through vineyards in the south of France and talking with winemakers; just to name a few, these are places I have learned.
How do we implement this? Sigh, I have no idea. Smaller class size? More teachers? More tests based on things that children DO, so they are encouraged to really learn about a subject wholly, not just rote memorization for a multiple choice scantron.
The best teachers I had gave essay tests. They were always difficult, but these teachers insisted this was the way life operated; in such a way that you had to be able to present yourself and ideas in a learned, organized, coherent manner. Of course they were right, and I am sad their methods were a rare find.
Too funny...I saw this comment pop up and thought "who in the world commented so soon? I just put this post up..."
I had a similar problem. I LOVE learning, but always saw school as something to get through so that I could have a job.
There are some big movements going on in education, at least in theory. Educational institutions are big ones and likely slow to move.
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