Friday, October 2, 2020

Modern Education

Me, to my 15-year-old daughter: Have you had any math quizzes yet?

My daughter: No, but we did have a Celebration of Learning.

1 comment:

G. Verloren said...

Sounds good to me, at least in theory.

When I was in school, the experience did everything within its power to teach kids to hate learning. It succeeded at that task for a great many of my peers, but I had the luxury of being naturally gifted, as well as raised in a family that valued learning.

I was able to actually learn meaningfully outside of school, and I was given help with developing the patience to just go through the motions of school and listen to teachers explain concepts I had mastered long before reaching their classrooms.

It took until college before I encountered teaching techniques that actually cared whether I was being challenged or actually even learning everything else. Everything before that was jumping through hoops and ticking checkmarks on a list. I took lots of quizzes, but none of them ever helped me learn anything, and most of them tempted me to hate the topics they related to. Not a great way to educate, in my mind...

Of course, different tools for different needs. I'm sure there are people who love quizes, and who get a lot of good out of them. But kids aren't one-size-fits-all.