This Foundation was formed as an aptitude testing and research entity. The leveled workbooks on vocabulary are thorough and detailed, giving several excellent opportunities for students to become familiar with the words selected for each chapter.
Buy the workbooks HERE
In our modern society where local actions often tend to have global implications, the nature of the problems we face and the opportunities we seek have broadened considerably. This broadening of scope carries with it a corresponding increase in the complexities of these issues. It is, therefore, incumbent upon educators to teach young students how to find problems and opportunities, think through them in a formalized way, and to come up with possible courses of action.
Kickstarter is a wonderful forum where people discuss their interesting ideas, and look for funding from the public. This very democratic medium for sharing ideas and raising venture capital provides an excellent starting point for teachers endeavoring to introduce this topic to students. One activity might be to ask students to look for an interesting funding project, and report back to the class.
Link to Kickstarter HERE
Teachers should seek new knowledge and as often as possible. This commitment can extend from a few hours learning to cook crepes, to a life-long study of birds. This will inform our practice enabling us to rethink how we process new learning: choosing a topic, buying a book or searching the internet, learning from an expert, joining a club, writing down findings, and retaining and applying knowledge (in whole or in part). This understanding spotlights our expectations of student process, and production.
The internet, and changes in the complexity of problems and questions, have expanded the role of teacher as imparter of self-stored knowledge to include facilitator and mentor of self-guided student learning. Where we once had rote learning, we now include problem solving. New directions in education lead to students actually finding problems and defining probing questions themselves, and then solving them. Improving how we look for, validate, compact, sort and evaluate information will be crucial to our success as learners, students, and teachers.
In its most basic form, The Giver is the story of a small group of people who choose to live in a closed society free of pain, war and hunger. For this, they largely give up contact with the outside world, memory of past human experience, and the right of free choice. Every aspect of personal life is totally controlled by a central authority. The complexity of the book increases with every chapter, although the language employed makes it easily accessible to younger readers. A wealth of discussion topics on society, fairness, freedom, and choice await readers and teachers.
Combining this book with The Truman Show transforms an already substantial book into a large, rich compare and contrast essay/discussion project catering to both auditory, and visual, learners.
Read about The Giver HERE, or get yourself a copy HERE.
A high school teacher of mine in South Africa, Alan Douglas, once ran a bicycling trip for charity at our school. When giving directions, he said to thunderous laughter, “If you get lost, go back to where you last knew you were”. Sound advice indeed if you are going through a life crisis, struggling through a Science experiment, or finding yourself stumped on an essay. Not quite so sound if you are physically lost on your bicycle! So amusing was this statement, that I remember it vividly some thirty years later. Its basic tenet though, drives to the core of sound learning and teaching and that is to think through problems carefully, and try to find solutions which might not always be obvious at first. Applying knowledge, understanding and/or methodology in one area, might or might not work universally. Being able, and prepared, to apply new thinking to our ever-quickening pace of global change is crucial to our future success. Successfully negotiating this environment is partly tied up in how we think through problems/challenges.
How many people have you met in your life who have had a truly original idea? I would have to say that I have met many people from diverse backgrounds on several continents, and I can probably count true originality on two fingers. Most of us adapt ideas from someone else in one way or another. People continually ask for thinking outside the box. However, the vast amount of creativity, knowledge and information is contained within the box, and that is where we should start. Most ideas outside the box have origins inside the box. Bright sparks of creative genius are truly rare. Creative, useful adaptations of existing ideas occur far more regularly, and have been extremely useful in business, science, the arts and almost every other realm of human endeavor. A key component to thinking creatively entails giving children the tools to think in ways which best unlock existing knowledge for them in ways which lead to creative productivity.
As I sit and think through the reality of an environment changing with ever increasing rapidity, I ponder how I might be able to prepare ten-year-old children to excel in their future life course. A few ideas come to mind. Firstly, all information coming into our brains enabling us to make sensible and logical decisions come from an efficient utilization of our senses. Secondly, everything that we need in life we get from other people in one way or another. Combining these two ideas together, I see my overarching goal as helping students bring all their senses to bear on a problem in an enlightened way, and then giving them the self-confidence to express their opinions and thinking publicly. Therein lies an acceptance of change and all it brings, building up the individual’s self-confidence, and learning how to best utilize our senses.