[IAEP] versus, not

[Bill Kerr]

Kathy,

I haven't read the books you cite but I do as a teacher frequently use
direct instruction.  That was strongly implied in my initial post.
Nevertheless, I'm sure I could do it better. When I read your response my
first thought was that you had not read my post carefully.

btw this discussion does mirror an earlier one b/w Patrick Suppes and
Seymour Papert - well covered in Papert's 'The Childrens Machine' and
Cynthia Solomon's 'Computer Environments for Children'

Both Suppes and Papert argued that computers could improve education but in
different ways. Cynthia Solomon found that there was a greater need for
direct instruction approaches in disadvantaged areas. But that did not make
her a DI only advocate. My own experience in teaching in disadvantaged
schools for the past dozen years is consistent with that.

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:13 AM, Kathy Pusztavari
<kathy at kathyandcalvin.com>wrote:

>  "eg. I would see direct instruction as a must for autistic children but
> don't see that it follows as a general model for all education "
>
> The problem is that at least 20% of our kids in the US qualify as either
> special ed or learning disabled in some form.  So you would be leaving out
> about 20% of the population (especially when teaching reading and math).
>
> Math can be improved greatly through Direct Instruction.  If you have not
> taught Connecting Math Concepts and other non-DI curriculum, I would like to
> know why you would say such a thing.  DI would make most, if not all kids
> LIKE math at the early levels (Kindergarten - 8th grade).  It makes them
> succeed because it is mastery based.  If you want to see brilliant
> curriculum development, you should look at SRA DISTAR I & II, Connecting
> Math Concepts (A-F) and Essentials for Algebra.
>
> -Kathy
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org [mailto:
> iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org] *On Behalf Of *Bill Kerr
> *Sent:* Monday, May 04, 2009 5:21 PM
> *To:* Walter Bender
> *Cc:* iaep; Sugar-dev Devel; community-news at lists.sugarlabs.org
> *Subject:* [IAEP] versus, not
>
>  On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ===Sugar Digest===
>>
>> I encourage you to join two threads on the Education List this week:
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005382.html, which
>> has boiled down to an instruction vs construction debate; and
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005342.html, which
>> has boiled down to a debate of catering to local culture vs the
>> Enlightenment. I encourage you to join these discussions.
>
>
> Agree that these are important discussions
>
> Need to be careful about the use of the versus depiction of these
> discussions IMO, this tempting shorthand can create the wrong impression
>
> eg. I would see direct instruction as a must for autistic children but
> don't see that it follows as a general model for all education (special
> needs are special) or that we should even think it is possible to have a
> correct general model. I don't think there is one and good teachers swap
> between multiple models all the time.
>
> no one on this list has argued overtly against  "the enlightenment" or that
> local culture ought not to be taken into account, eg. Ties said "think
> practical", the response was of the nature that our context demands we do <a
> certain course of action>
>
> however, I do think the roll back of enlightenment principles is not well
> understood (http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals) and that
> a  better understanding might persuade more people of the need to keep
> searching and struggling for different ways to go against some of  the tide
> of local culture - there is a recent interesting comment thread on mark
> guzdial's blog which is worth reading from this point of view
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK
>
>
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