Tuesday, February 9, 2010

What Are We Teaching?

Susan Engel writes in the New York Times:
Imagine, for instance, a third-grade classroom that was free of the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students, and that was devoted instead to just a few narrowly defined and deeply focused goals.

In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.


Imagine an educational system that emphasized something other than testing! Might a literature-based classroom even save money, once we eliminate the textbook publisher's restrictive, expensive package deals?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We are a homeschooling family with a 5 year old daughter reading already above grade level, and we have used no curriculum or formal training as yet...just did pretty much as you described. :)

We all love reading and she has learned from a very young age to love, respect and enjoy books and reading. Just one more reason we love homeschooling...! :)

~Sandra

Jazminwilss said...

It will nice to read such knowledgeable article blog which will be so helpful to all the schools who will be get to know of teaching ideas...
Regards
Jazmin Wilss