standard versus brightness

I've been thinking about how to solve the problem that some children start with more comprehension than others but still need to learn how to read and write. How can schools give each child the material that fits it when there are huge differences between children, to start with on text comprehension. There is differentiation on the level of technical reading, but not on the level of comprehension. This would mean the necessity for a complete new line of schoolbooks that are high on comprehension and low on technical reading.
Standard levels may be useful for schools, they may be useless for society. There are complaints at Universities and colleges about the levels dropping. What I observe is that the brightest children drop out and the level at the end of the secondary school is too low in the eyes of the Universities.

new government, knowledge based education

Yesterday in the Netherlands we were presented with the new government. It was a pleasurable surprise to find out that the education department will now be in the hands of not only a scientist, but a critical thinker. A scientist who engages in discussions over intelligent design versus evolution. Although he is an advocate of evolution, he promised it will not affect the freedom of schools, meaning the special schools will not be affected. I am happy that we have a very intelligent minister at this post. This means I hope better policies and a signal that education will be taken seriously. Now is the chance to accomplish what Piaget pleaded for, more use of science and knowledge in education. Let's hope we will see a change in the curricula that takes more into consideration learning styles and more favorable conditions for all children. I hope the emphasis will shift towards learning strategies and problem solving against reproductive skills only.

4 to scaffold you today

1) how to write a science dialogue
2) dark matter exists
3) blogging on blogging
4) without brains?

Puzzle sunday (2)

Today I was strolling in the windy polders. The polders in the Netherlands (picture is an example) are land won over the sea more than a century ago, at the cost of lives. My son believes that the climate will cause the sea level to rise, I am not so sure it will rise more than the 10 to 20 centimeter every ten years or so, the same as always, with fluctuations. The wind is very cold and the sheep are coming towards us, as if they expect something from us. Then one sheep turns around. The other sheep watch her and one after the other turn around and walk away.
It is no weather for sheep in the wet clay, it is time for children to do puzzles: visit Jurassic Park? And to read books, books and books...

Difficult puzzle, scaffolding & automatisation

Difficult puzzles need a strategy to be able to solve them. Smart children just try solving them, trusting their solving skills rather than a strategy. This works until they face a puzzle that seems not to work in that way. Then they have to try something called multilayered strategy. This is exactly the aim of scaffolding, getting insight in structure of solution, rather than being able to just solve the puzzle without having to worry how they did it.
In the midst of this comes emotions that are new to smart children: failure, frustration, stress... These emotions are often successfully avoided because smart children often can solve problems easily. When the puzzle is difficult enough, they get the chance to experience these emotions. A good teacher knows that emotions are a part of education. It is good to reflect on the emotions. What happened? How did you feel?
Then the child has to finish the task anyway. This means perseverance. The more perseverance, the better the child will feel when it does succeed to solve the problem in the end.
When they succeeded to solve the difficult puzzle, accompanied with the necessary frustration, the next step is to teach the child to automatize the puzzle.

neurology à la carte

For more depth on neuroblogging, I suggest you try the à la carte of Olivier.

coffee, no regularity

Does coffee influence sequential thinking? I wondered after seeing pictures of spiders that made webs after drinking coffee. I was shocked to see how much effect coffee has on the pattern made by the spider.
I already quit drinking sugar in my coffee. Maybe I should quit coffee and drink herbal tea instead.
Maybe my coffee drinking behaviour is responsible for my "but first syndrom", rather than a chaotic nature?