The Hammock Papers: Naturally.

28 July 2012

Naturally.

Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.

- John Dewey

We are at a crossroads in this nation regarding the direction that public education will take in the coming decades. Do we focus on a curriculum that concentrates on a few core subjects or do we gain an appreciation for how public education can develop all aspects of the child to the benefit of each of them as well as society in general? Do we place test preparation ahead of actually educating our children and test scores ahead of broader and more holistic approaches to evaluating students' competencies? These questions lay at the heart of the current debate about the future of public education in America.

The recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, which placed American children far down the rankings compared to students from other developed nations, sparked a firestorm of debate over what we must do to our public education system. Some commentators declared the results to be our Sputnik moment, prompting others to demand that we double down on the testing philosophy and regimen that emerged out of the No Child Left Behind legislation. At the same time, the results of the PISA research have provoked in many commentators more innovative thinking about what a public education system in America that is designed for the 21st century should look like.

What was pervasive throughout this debate has been a faulty assumption that our current education crisis boils down to a black-and-white choice between academic achievement or a holistic approach to teaching and learning. However, the very meaning of the word 'holistic' defies this presumption by encompassing the whole child including the intellectual, artistic, physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and civic development of students. A holistic approach brings together elements that support the development of a child who is healthy, knowledgeable, motivated, and engaged, seeking to ensure all that is required for successful life and preparation for society.

Read the rest at 21st Century Fluency Project.

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL