I met with Horacio Itzcovich, a professor of Mathematics and member of curricula development and advisor to the secretary of education. During our conversation we explored the similarities and differences of our education systems. Both the United States and Argentina are facing the crisis of losing our young people from the education systems at the ages of 14 – 15. We agreed that both systems continue to instruct our young people in a system that was created for a different time and the system has not been able to evolve and respond to the needs of our young people. Mr. Itzcovich indicated that our young people are living in a culture of “Zappin” and “Lite” meaning that they change channels every few minutes like a remote control with the television and they don’t find the need to stay with a project through completion. We also agreed that unless we train our teachers to teach differently and adapt to the needs of our young people we will continue to lose them to things that can capture their attention.
As far as our proposed solutions, we thought that we first need to bring relevance from a young person’s perspective into our education system. Mr. Itzcovich gave some successful examples with groups of students including small business development or exploring key questions that have relevance to their lives. One young woman would wake up at 4:00 a.m. to bake bread and sell it before school to earn the money she needed. Mr. Itzcovich took her initiative and used it to educate his entire class on math calculations, business planning, project management, and marketing through scientific inquiry methodology. At the end of the project Laura’s business grew and the entire class developed relevant competencies for the real world. In another case, Mr. Itzcovich asked a question about a marketing strategy used by a certain company for yogurt that indicated it had less than 10,000 bacteria. Through scientific inquiry the students were able to relate to the question as they ate yogurt everyday and in the process learn both the process of discovery and specific math and science competencies.
We discussed that the only limitations to bringing relevance through business development and asking key questions is that the competencies learned are at a basic level and it doesn’t teach higher competencies or the exploration of ideas for intellectual growth. In addition, Mr. Itzcovich didn’t believe that we should put our young people in the position of operating a business because although it brings relevance into the education system it doesn’t allow for the exploration of ideas in the most formative times of a young person’s life. We thought that an approach might be to first bring relevance into the education system and then throughout a high school career slowly introduce more abstract thinking and exploration of ideas.
Finally, we agreed that if we were to change the education system we’d have to build a school based upon different principles. For example, instead of teachers teaching in isolation and six hours a day with little planning time a school would need to be built with instruction being limited to 3 hours a day and planning and implementation occupying about 60 percent of the school day.
4 comments:
Hi Nick!
I hope you are enjoying the beauty that Argentina has to offer. I was reading the other day that school is free for everyone in Argentina, even at the university level. I was wondering if this allows more young people to take advantage of attaining a higher education, as opposed to the U.S. where secondary education costs are often times a huge barrier.
This is all very interesting but it generates a lot of questions for me.
How would teachers be trained to adapt to the shortened attention spans of today’s young people? And perhaps more importantly, is the teacher's inability to hold a young person's attention in the classroom why we are losing so many kids?
Making education relevant to a young person's life is important, no doubt, but not if it debases the pursuit of knowledge (as you mentioned).
I think by reducing class sizes from 35+ to 15 would increase a teacher's ability to hold a young person's attention while not asking them to cater to an education "Lite" kind of culture.
Just a couple thoughts. It sounds like you are doing great things. Congreso is very proud.
Keeping up with your trip to South America. The bread making activity is an excellent example of how you can bring relevance to education. Look forward to more posts.
Frank Mirabal/Contigo Research, Policy & Strategy
Yes, Unniversity is free for all individuals in Argentina, but this doesn't ensure access as most people who live outside of the city can not afford to pay for living expeneses in the the city. Also, Argentina struggle with the loss of their youth in secondary school just like we do indicating that free Unniversity is not the beginning to ensuring our youth are graduating. There are some more basic issues that have to be addressed first.
It seems that the entire world is struggling with how do we make education relevant to the current high school generation. On Friday I'm going to visit an organization that seems to have found the right balance between the pursuit of knowledge and relevant education. More to come.
Post a Comment