Student Centered Teaching and Child Geniuses

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/10/free-thinkers/all/

This article by Joshua Davis (2013), How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses, critiques the standardized pedagogies in public schools today. Claiming that public schools are still largely based on the values and skills that were deemed valuable during the industrial revolution, it is suggested that they are outdated and no longer provide the most relevant education – as indicated in high dropout rates from US public high schools and an unpreparedness of students for college courses. On the other hand, there is a new generation of pedagogy emerging, based on child-initiated learning, the belief that “knowledge isn’t a commodity that’s delivered from teacher to student but something that emerges from the students’ own curiosity-fueled exploration.”

The article goes on to describe how one teacher in a public school located within a drug and crime-rife district in Mexico, Juarez Correa, decided to change the way in which he taught the students. Inspired by the work done by researchers such as Sugata Mitra, Correa pursued a student directed teaching method, allowing them to decide what they wanted to learn, and the freedom to decide how. He would provide the problems and provide any information that the students wished to know. This combination of peer teaching, group learning and the student’s innate ability to logically analyse the problems presented by the teacher, allowed for his students to do exceptionally well in the national math examination, and even allowed for one student, Paloma, to place first in Mexico for math.

I find that this reflects some of the theoretical underpinnings of culturally relevant pedagogy mentioned in Ladson-Billings’ (1995) work. Particularly relevant is the “Freirean notion of ‘teaching as mining’ or pulling knowledge out” (Ladson-Billings, 1995: 479). This is teaching with the conception that students have an innate ability to learn, and with the right teaching methods can excel. There is also the intentional idea of a “community of learners” (Ladson-Billings, 1995: 480) and collaborative learning present in the class which the article writes about. Correa arranged the class into small groups to facilitate discussion, and allowed them freedom to talk and interact in a way which might have come across as ‘chaotic’ to most. Also, when presented with a situation in which the students seemed to be going in the wrong direction, did not intervene, but allowed them to debate and collectively arrive at the right answer.

Another link between the article and the culturally relevant pedagogy that Ladson-Billings (1995) writes about is the idea that “assessment must be multifaceted, incorporating multiple forms of excellence”. This shadows teacher Correa critique of standardized testing that can sometimes be limiting: “that they test what you know, not what you can do, and I am more interested in what my students can do.” Instead, aiming to assess students on what they can do, can take the form of getting students “to make a presentation in their area of expertise”, and assess them based on that, as one teacher did (Ladson-Billings, 1995: 481).

I think that Davis’ (2013) article really shines light on how much of children’s potential is not being reached in schools today, and governmental and the educational institutions need to revise the traditional pedagogy in order to keep up with the times. Many a times, we are aware of the changes that need to occur, but are hindered from implementing them because of a fear of uncertainty and deviating from what has ‘always worked in the past’.

References

Davis, J. (2013, October 15). How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses. Retrieved from Wired Business: http://www.wired.com/business/2013/10/free-thinkers/all/

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 465-491.