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A very interesting read on the subject of equality and competition in education is Lorenzo Milani students' book 'Lettera a una professoressa' (Letter to a Teac
by carlob 14y ago
A very interesting read on the subject of equality and competition in education is Lorenzo Milani students' book 'Lettera a una professoressa' (Letter to a Teacher) [1].
Milani was a catholic priest that was deemed a bit too radical by the church establishment and was sent in a tiny rural community as a teacher so that he would stay away from the workers in large cities. There he developed a full time school, where older students would teach the younger and there was no notion of marks, testing or even holiday.
Learning was a collective experience that relied on critical thinking and research rather than rote learning. The book is also seminal (at least in Italy) since it uses hard numbers to show the social inequality of the school system. The statistical and economical analysis was performed by his students as a research project.
[1] http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/LTAT_Final.pdf http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/LTAT_Final.pdf
- keithpeter 14y ago"The statistical and economical analysis was performed by his students as a research project." That is the way to do it, thanks for this reference. Paulo Freire has had a similar influence in adult teaching. One quick quote from the PDF... "I'd have you paid by piecework. So much for each child who learns one subject. Or,even better, a fine for each child who does not learn a subject. Then your eyes would always be on Gianni. You would search out in his inattentive stare the intelligence that God has put in him, as in all children. You would fight for the child who needs you most, neglecting the gifted one, as they do in any family. You would wake up at night thinking about him and would try to invent new ways to teach him - ways that would fit his needs. You would go to fetch him from home if he did not show up for class." Er - no, I'd just go and find another job, subject to a definition of what 'learn a subject' means! I'll print and read the whole PDF carefully but this is exactly the opposite of what the Finnish system does.
- carlob 14y agoI think this quote is more of an hyperbole, however the principle of the quote would be: spend most of your energies on the most difficult students, not on the gifted ones; probably the most gifted student will find something to satiate their interests anyway and their families are already providing them tangentially with learning material. An educator I know likes to say that's not the really worst students you should spend your energies on, but the ones just a little better, that's where the best return on investment is, according to him.