The challenges are many:
1. Keeping kids curious
2. Facilitating learning of essential skills, and yet, will these essential skills be different 20 years from now?
3. Bringing the schools and community on board with this type of structure.
4., 5., and beyond.....
Structure is so severely embedded in our society. From insisting starting pre-school at age three to the structure of play time. For example, children are in school all day, then they have scheduled fun, (soccer, ballet, piano, etc.). When do we give children the opportunity to explore and achieve learning for the pure enjoyment of it? Certainly not in kindergarten, as one of our class colleagues pointed out.
How can we keep learning fun, or at least enjoyable for our students? How will we keep students engaged? Granny clouds?
Granny clouds...didn't you love that?
ReplyDeleteAs educators we are going to have to rethink how we do business...Are we holding students back as we force them to learn the content standards as opposed to teaching those critical skills necessary to navigate our ever-changing world? Essential Skills and Proficiency-based learning seems to be more relevant, but we have a long way to go if we are going to engage students. The concept of Educational Entertainment as a means to engage, stimulate, and foster student learning can no longer be dismissed by educational purists.
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