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Welcome to these regular musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings by Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - April, 2005 Downshifting – April 29, 2005 Testing & Cynicism – April 24, 2005 Cheating in school is nothing new. But I clearly recall from my own high school experience 40 years ago that it was caused by pressure – from parents, teachers and “the system” – to perform well. That meant, of course, getting the correct answer on a test, a feat that would lead to both short-term (a bike if I passed grade 8) and longer-term (advancement to the next grade along with my friends and eventually a supposedly well-paying job) rewards. In the minds of us students, it had little or nothing to do with learning anything. In this era of high-stakes testing, I am not surprised that there is even more pressure on students to produce the right answers on tests. As I’ve written in this column before, many parents are pushing their kids ever harder to perform well so they can get a head start in the rat race by getting ahead in the job market. At the same time, teachers and schools whose students perform well can receive financial incentives, while those performing below standard on tests are threatened with reprimands and/or budget cuts. This sort of pressure has negative consequences on students’ learning and on their psychological well-being. Stressed-out teachers who teach-to-the-test are hardly able to do more than force their students to memorize facts that will soon be forgotten. There is a growing body of research showing that students subjected to such a narrowly focused view of the world lose any motivation, commitment to learning and love of knowledge they once had. (For instance, see Edward Deci and Richard Ryan’s work on Self-Determination Theory at the University of Rochester.) In the workplace, it is well understood that assessment which provides specific, one-on-one feedback in an atmosphere without pressure or control will result in employees with increased self-motivation who become more effective in meeting challenges. Why don’t we extend that experience to kids? So
it is not surprising that young people are becoming increasingly
disengaged and cynical about tests, resulting in
increased levels of cheating. In order to change that, we must allow
them to feel like competent and autonomous members of a learning
society, rather than like parrots programmed to regurgitate other
people’s words under pressure. Happy Earth Day – April 22, 2005 However, Earth Day is supposed to be one of
celebration. And since this month also marks Rolf’s and my 35th
wedding anniversary, I’m in a positive mood. So let’s see the glass
as half full and use this day to renew our efforts to walk more lightly
on this planet. Happy Earth Day. Women Do Politics Differently – April
16, 2005 I suspect there are a few reasons for that. First of all, there are fewer women in such powerful jobs. Canada ranks 36th in the world among democracies in terms of women’s representation in the national legislature, after Monaco and Nicaragua. And we’re not getting any better. According to a multi-partisan group called Equal Voice – An Action Group for the Election of Women, the number of women candidates running for election in Canada has actually been decreasing – falling from a high of 476 women candidates in 1993 to just 373 in the last federal election. And in the ruling Liberal party, which is at the heart of the current scandal, women candidates dropped from a high of 84 in 1997 to just 66 in 2000. Secondly, women do politics differently than men,
something I discovered during a brief stint as leader of the Green Party
of Canada in the mid 1990s. (I
resigned largely because of those differences.) But don’t take my word for it.
The World Bank – not exactly a bastion of feminism or progressivism
– reported just that in a 1999 paper
entitled
“Are Women Really the ‘Fairer’ Sex?”. The study matched up a
so-called “corruption index” used in economic research against a
survey of women’s representation in elected office. The results were
clear: “The greater the representation of women in parliament, the
lower the level of corruption” and that “women should be
particularly effective in promoting honest government.” Earlier this
year, Equal Voice wrote to the leaders of Canadian political parties
asking them to ensure the nomination and election of more women for the
next election. I hope the guys listened and that the next election
won’t be too soon, so that they can use lack of time as an excuse not to
include more women in the political process...and thus clean up the
mess. Otherwise, citizen cynicism will continue to grow. We’re All Gifted – April 10, 2005 A decade ago, the principal of our local public elementary school invited me to help a multi-grade group of “gifted” students learn about journalism and newspaper publishing. I agreed, preparing a couple of sessions to demonstrate reporting, interviewing and news writing, to which the young people responded well. Of course, not all of them were interested in the topic, but most of them seemed to enjoy the experience anyway. Then they became reporters. They each covered an event at their school and wrote about it, using the techniques they had supposedly learned. The next time I met with them, I provided editorial feedback, in the same way I would to adult journalists, true to the principal’s instructions. Although most of them were indignant that I would ask for a re-write, the pieces eventually were published in a special section of the weekly community newspaper I was publishing at the time. In an attempt to provide these students with an ongoing, real-world learning experience, I agreed to make the column a monthly feature. Unfortunately, neither the teacher nor the students were willing or able to meet my deadlines. And the quality of work was dreadful and spiraling downward, with none of the writers adhering in any way to the most basic principles we had discussed – and that they had used when writing their initial articles. In a few cases, when students had apparently tried to write in a journalistic style, their articles had been badly re-written or incorrectly edited by a teacher not involved with the program. I eventually called the whole thing to a halt, and branded it as a lose-lose situation. I should have known better. I should have remembered that creativity and initiative do not flourish in an atmosphere of coercion. While specific talents and interests deserve special training, the best way to help children develop their creative abilities is to surround them with creativity and allow them to pursue their own ideas and projects in the real world. If adults model creative thinking, children will follow their lead. If adults try to look at the world in new ways and to find new ways to do conventional things, children will do the same thing. Aside from being a non-stimulating environment for
all but a few students who have been ranked as part of an elite group,
much of the school mentality actually undermines innovation. There is
little room for true individuality in a school setting. Nor, for that
matter, is there room for any part of the creative process, which is
uneven, bumpy and non-standardized. Pressure to produce – as well as
evaluation, judgment, criticism and comparison – kills any original
thinking and creativity that manage to survive. Dying Not to Eat – April 4, 2005 According to the National Association for Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Eating Disorders (ANAD), eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia affect eight million people in the United States alone. Bulimia is considered a serious mental illness, and the constant purging can lead to a variety of physical ailments, including a loss of the mineral potassium, which can contribute to heart problems and even, as in Schiavo’s case, death. Many psychiatrists now consider eating disorders to be a subset of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), with the obsession settling on body image as opposed to things like hand-washing. With the increasingly sophisticated advertising industry’s use of psychographic analysis to motivate people to buy stuff, many of those with eating disorders have clearly been influenced by marketing messages designed to create needs that they wouldn’t otherwise have. One only has to look at the emaciated models in fashion magazines to understand that some people would want to look that way…and feel badly if they don’t. There is also speculation that eating disorders are about control; by controlling their own bodies – albeit in an unhealthy way – young people who feel out of control, due to adolescent hormones, regimented schools or strict parents, for instance, are comforted. (And once again, the irony in Schiavo’s situation surfaces as one thinks about her parents who had such a fierce desire to control her recent life and death and who seemed to me to have been in denial about both her bulimia and the extent of her brain damage.) ANAD has made the link between Terri Schiavo’s
death and eating disorders. Perhaps now that the circus atmosphere that
surrounded her last few years has abated, her death may help those young
women
who are so vulnerable to exploitative advertising messages that they eat
themselves to death. Trusting Ourselves and Our Children
Is Not Regressive
– April 1, 2005 I have been exploring some of those issues – both in my own life and in a broader context – as a result of the reader feedback I’ve been receiving to a recent Life Learning magazine column (see my March 21, 2005 blog entry – “Learning Neatness”). As part of that exploration, I am reading a book entitled The Paradox of Natural Mothering (2002, Temple University Press). Academic Chris Bobel has massaged her dissertation into a book that portrays a group of mothers engaged in homeschooling, natural health care, voluntary simplicity and various attachment parenting practices. The paradox in the title arises from what Bobel sees as a conflict between a lifestyle that is both progressive and regressive (i.e. anti-feminist). While the women she interviewed feel they are making choices in their lives, Bobel denigrates these as non-choices that are biologically determined because they are emotionally-based rather than intellectually thought-out. (Presumably, if they’d thought about their choices, they’d have behaved like more conventional mothers!) What these mothers are, in fact, doing is trusting their emotions, their intuition, their bodies and their children. Perhaps our societal agendas have swung us so far
away from the inherent “knowing” that characterizes primitive
societies that so-called “natural parenting” seems to contradict the
principles of equality for women. My own life – and I would say those
of the women Bobel has portrayed – is an ongoing pursuit of the
balance between trust and intellect. Trust, after all, is one of the
cornerstones of non-coercive parenting and life learning. Taking
ownership of our own education and allowing our children to own theirs
requires trust in what we call “human nature”. In the case of our
children, that means trusting that they will behave sociably and want to
learn things, including both academic knowledge and social skills...with
our help and example, of course. Return
to current weblog copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 200 7 |
Topics & Passions: natural learning ~ What I'm reading: Ten Thousand Roses by
Judy Rebick (2005, Penguin Books) ~ What I'm Listening To:
Careless Love
by Madeleine Peyroux (Rounder Records)
~ Fav Bookmarks: Deep Fun ~ Fav Quotes
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