What Is Learning?
Recently, I asked this question on a reading test that I gave to my students. Most of them had some good answers, being well-educated, but some of them were pretty lost. “What is learning?” Taken by Dean Ayres My colleague said that he thought learning was becoming able to do something or gaining…
Teaching in Japan–What are your goals?
I am teaching in Japan now at a high school. The classroom is each teachers temple, and teachers here are often left to their own devices. This can be great, but if you want to more than that "funny foreign person," you need to succeed. To do that, you need to have goals and plans to achieve those goals.…
Learning to Succeed
What do our students need to learn? They need to learn how to learn, how to think, in short, how to succeed. This will prepare them for their future. However, not all of our goals are so simple. We cannot meet these goals if we do not meet the immediate ones of the school, state,…
The End of the Year and Big Stuff
It is the end of the year. Normally, in other careers, it might be good chance to think about how you did the last year and add up your accomplishments. However, since teachers' years start in September, or if you are here in Japan in April, we do not usually do that. Nevertheless, we should…
“What is a good education?” Is it learning innovation?
Teaching Innovation in Traditional Education Back to my previous question, "What is a good education?" In my last post, we looked at what many of those in business and political circles think is a good education--learning to innovate. We saw that some of these people think that this innovation will come only from long hours…
Can students learn innovation through memorization?
Do you remember when you were a student in high school? How many hours did you spend in classes? Do you know? Certainly, hundreds, thousands perhaps. Probably you don't even remember what classes you took. Did those classes help you become a creative innovator? Did you learn the kind of imaginitive wizardry to conjure up…
A “Good” Education
What is a good education? That is a million-or shall we say billion-dollar question for every government in the world. Why? How we educate our youth determines the future of our country more than any other factor. Think about it. A good education can triumph over almost any short-term problem. Learning is something that you…
Teachers talk too much!
Are you a teacher that talks too much? Most teachers talk too much. They enjoy standing up there, in front of a largely captive audience, and talking about what they know. It makes them feel important. The teacher has knowledge. The students need that knowledge. The teacher will thus tell you their sacred facts, that…
Novelty–different and new ideas are good for you
Beyond classroom education Novelty is an important idea in education. I've seen it here and there, but basically it means that learning should be fun and new. We should challenge our students with novel ideas in novel ways. Against that background, my colleague brought up a depressing story in the paper today. In the largest…
Brain Rules #3–Every Brain is wired differently, in other words, Multiple Intelligences
The rule is from the book Brain Rules. It is not new though. You've seen this before. The idea of multiple intelligences, that we each learn in a different way. We know this, of course, but we still often teach to a certain type of student in the class, somehow imagining that most of the…