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Madeleine Murphy's avatar

Amen. Teaching "skills" without content is like teaching kids "sports," but not letting them actually play baseball, football, tennis, ping pong. It's like saying "We'll learn music" but not the piano or the guitar.

And completely agree that *what* stuff children learn is probably less important than *that* they learn stuff - so long as it's real.

It's like we keep forgetting that abstractions (music, government, democracy, justice etc.) are ways of making sense of actual facts, events, feelings, observations. They're not just word Lego. If we skimp the "connect with real things in the world" phase, it's really hard for kids to learn how to find stuff out.

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What's Gneiss for Education's avatar

"Word Lego"

Excellent phrase, and one I will shamelessly steal for future use!

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Inside Outrance's avatar

As much as I sometimes have issues with the linearity of Bloom's Taxonomy, I do absolutely agree that you need to start with knowledge

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Jenna Vandenberg's avatar

Me, teaching sophomores yesterday: "If you slept through this entire unit and didn't learn anything, your essay will suck. Sorry."

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Theodore Whitfield's avatar

"Have the AI write a rough draft and then have the students rewrite."

When I see people say things like this, I think they have basically given up. They know they can't fight the AI deluge, so now they just have to find some rationalization to ease the intense cognitive dissonance inside their heads.

I for one welcome our new AI overlords.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lcUHQYhPTE

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David Deubelbeiss's avatar

I'm old enough to remember Raul Midon's song ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtvsqRmvWUo I blame the whole notion, promoted by cognitive science and in education that procedural knowledge is seperate from declarative knowledge. Also that the knower is seperate, an empty vessel, apart from the known and knowing. Until I understood the huge role tacit knowledge plays in thought - I was in the wrong camp.

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