Progressive Education

While reading the blog post "People who like this stuff... like this stuff", I was reminded of a question that often came into me and my colleagues' heads, "What is the purpose of this?". Throughout my 12 years in education we've have so many meetings about new things that we will try, Fundamental Five, 5E lesson planning, Kagan Strategies, and the list can go on. Many of the things can be useful, however with so much duties and responsibilities on teachers' shoulders, adding more to an already full plate is discouraging to many of us who already feel like we are drowning. The "why" is the most essential part of these trainings/meetings. This can apply to both educators and students. If the people who are supposed to be learning have no clue what the purpose is and why it is beneficial, they may see no reason to apply it.

I often have conversations about how education has changed or lack of since I was a student to now as an educator. One thing that always comes to mind for me is small group instruction. I love teaching in small groups and I know my students enjoy it as well. As a student, we very seldom received any individualized teaching from our teachers. I can imagine it would be more difficult to see where students may struggle in certain areas with out small group instruction. In the video I loved seeing the interaction between students who were working on not just academic skills but life skills such as making lunch. These types of skills aren't usually taught in the classroom because we depend on these skills being taught at home. I would love to see more skills like these integrated into the classes at an early age.