Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
2 May 2005
Books that influenced
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Books; Education.
I am looking back at early influences that might have moved me towards my current understanding of schooling and education. Back when I was a secondary student – maybe 16 or 17, I had two pretty progressive teachers: Mr Lee taught English, while Miss Pillai taught literature.
Mr Lee who was more laidback, lent me books. Like Herbert Kohl’s 36 Children, John Holt’s How Children Learn, and Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society.
Miss Pillai was strident in her political views and occasionally ran into trouble with the authorities, but she made us understand that literature wasn’t just words and stories, but ideas that shaped society. Lee and Pillay were a couple who shared a modest apartment not far from the school they taught in.
Those paperbacks packed a wallop. I don’t think I understood fully what these authors were saying, much less grasped how radical these books were then in the mid-70s. I don’t think I understood how influential these men’s ideas were -not knowing any better – but I was utterly sold on their arguments. They were questioning conventional wisdom about schools, how kids learn, how process and substance were two different things, and yep, they certainly made me ask the same questions although I couldn’t see how anyone could beat the system.
In some ways, you could say these early ideas made it easier for me to ‘deschool’ and homeschool my own kids when the time came. Since then there have been other books, but that’s a story for another time.
What early influences led you to homeschool?
25 April 2005
End of Education
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Books; Education.
THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO LOOK AT EDUCATION since it encompasses processes (how we learn) and formal knowledge (what we learn), but what is it all for? The late Neil Postman in his book End of Education said the purpose of education is to provide moral guidance, a sense of continuity, explanations of the past, clarity to the present, and hope for the future. It’s certainly well put but as it is all too clear, more education does not a better world make.
To be fair Postman does give suggestions to actively connect thought and deed, knowledge and service, so that society gains from education. But to do that, he proposed we rescue schools from their deplorable state with a complete overhaul, which is as likely as a goose laying a golden egg.
The 9th century Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi who introduced Medieval Europe to arithmatic and algebra (from the Arabic al-jabru) called the latter ”the science of restoration and balancing.” I’d like to think it’s a definition that clues us in on what’s the point in any education – if I may be allowed to extrapolate from his thought.
Learning is more than acquiring knowledge or mastering a skill. To quote Dewey, it’s not preparation for life, because learning is life itself. And life expresses itself not just passively in our being, but also in our doing, which must include that which brings restoration and balance in a world tainted by the Fall.
Jesus who came not to be served but to serve went about teaching and doing good, so the Gospels tell us. In his letter to the Ephesians Paul said that the Church of God has been amply gifted with teachers,pastors, and prophets to equip His people for works of service . And to Timothy, Paul said that the Bible was given to equip God’s people for good work.
The impulse behind all learning is to know God and His work in creation and history. We glorify Him when our learning finds expression in service to others. It was the great reformer Martin Luther who once wrote that God does not need our good works, but other people do. Life-long learning for a life of service. Makes sense to me. Now can anyone help Ethan make sense of algebra?
21 February 2005
Homework and Homeschool
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Education; Values.
An old photo of our two boys appeared in the Sunday Star recently. Taken 5 years ago when we were interviewed for an article on homeschooling, it’s now used to illustrate a story about the tyranny of homework. “Can we ask the papers to pay us for using our photo without permission?” asked Elliot. With a headline that screamed, Burden on Parent and Child, the article reported stress and anxiety among parents and school students brought about by excessive homework.
The irony isn’t lost on us because we homeschool to get out of the very system that’s being discussed here. A homeschooler once quipped that parents of children in conventional schools must believe in homeschooling – after all they spend so much time coaching and helping their kids with their school assignments at home. Of course mundane homework reportedly including “copying questions AND answers from workbooks”, rewriting ‘nicely’ a teacher’s notes” do not add to the pleasure.
In the report, one mother claims that she spends 3 hours after dinner every night going through her daughters’ schoolwork. And that’s not all of course. Students these days have to contend with tuition, which comes with homework as well. A father whose 7-year old son is registered for tuition in ALL subjects told me that although it appears stressful, his son is actually more motivated – he works harder on his tuition homework than the ones he brings home from school. So who’s to say homework is a burden?
The contentious subject about homework surfaced recently with the publication of an international survey by Australian psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg last July. In the report Malaysian students were found to spend an average of 3.8 hours a day on homework compared to Singapore (3.5), Russia (3.1), Australia and Canada (2.2) and Japan (1.7).
In a typical reaction, the Education Ministry pooh-poohed the survey then as ‘irrelevant’ but has since seen the light. Minister of Education Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein announced a set of guidelines to regulate homework, so that it would be “fun for students, focus on specific work and serve as learning aids.”
Dr Etta Kralovec, teacher and teacher-educator wrote in her groundbreaking book “The End of Homework” that homework does not necessarily make for brighter students. Instead homework can have a negative effect on children, families and communities. Subtly but surely, child-family time so necessary to build relationship is disrupted, time for leisure, music lessons, reading, or hobbies is curtailed, down time for relaxation and play is discouraged, and involvement in other learning activities (such as church, special interest groups, community clubs, etc) is sidestepped. Worse still, inability to complete schoolwork on time or to a teacher’s expectation may deepen frustration and lead to loss of love for learning and a desire to drop out of school altogether.
So does that mean schools ought to scrap homework entirely? I don’t know. Right now debate is raging over the form that homework takes. Yet not enough is said about how children learn, much less the contents in schoolbooks that ought to captivate, and encourage thinking and learning.
Certainly homeschoolers face a different kind of tension. Because homeschool derives its pedagogical benefits from a broader canvass encompassing formal and informal learning, all work is in fact homework. Sometimes parents confuse ends with means – the number of hours at the table, the number of books read, question of assessment and testing – and like other parents worry if their children are getting enough learning!
While education normally includes the mastery of facts, homeschoolers should aim higher. Win the National Spelling Bee. Be a champion orator. Go ahead, win awards. Be all your kids can be. But also work on attitudes such as self-sacrifice, readiness to serve, endurance, self-motivation, humility, adaptability, willingness to try new challenges, hard work, and a heart that’s tender to the things of God.
Above all, families should review their goals frequently so that whatever the aims, children should not forget their Creator in the days of their youth, and learn to “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Eccl 12:13). If these are lessons for a lifetime, the time to start is now.