This post is authored by Don Peek, a former educator and past president of the training division of Renaissance Learning. He now runs
Promoting a
Skills-Based Curriculum
It’s nice to know all the states and capitals in the United
States. It’s great to be able to list
the Presidents of the United States in order.
Unfortunately, most students don’t get a lot of use from this
information once they leave school.
Well --- unless they get to be a guest on Jeopardy.
I taught at the middle school level for eight years before I
became an administrator of one kind or another for twelve more years. I then worked as a public speaker for six
years. I did staff development in hotels
and in schools for both teachers and administrators.
One of my favorite parlor tricks was to give a short quiz to
my audience so they could quickly understand how much time we sometimes waste
in schools. Here are a few of the
questions:
What were the beginning and ending years of the Civil War?
Write down the Pythagorean Theorem?
What was the real name of the famous American writer O. Henry?
What is the capital of South Dakota?
What is the formula for common table salt?
Write the rule for punctuating a sentence if a subordinate conjunction
comes in middle of a sentence.
Those are 6 questions from my 10 question quiz (answers are
at the bottom of this blog). How many
did you get right? The average score in
my seminars was 3 or 4 out of 10 at the most.
Most of you reading this blog have one or more college
degrees. You’ve had to memorize the
information above at least once during your career as a student. Yet you probably did no better on this quiz
than my seminar attendees.
Students spend countless amounts of time in school
memorizing information when, in reality, they should be learning and practicing
skills. Reading is a skill. Keyboarding is a skill. Using the computer as a research tool is a
skill. Speaking in front of an audience
is a skill.
Skills may get rusty if you don’t use them often enough, but
you won’t lose them the way you do when you memorize information. If you were ever able to ride a bike, you
still can. Your skill level may fade a
bit, but with a little practice, it comes right back to you.
Learning as many skills as possible is important to every
student, but it is especially important to students who are learning disabled
or have other disabilities. It’s
important that they read and understand at the highest level possible, that
they can read and interpret every type of warning sign, that they can use computers to access
information and also to entertain themselves, and that they can communicate
effectively. The list of skills they
need goes on and on.
Will students at times have to memorize information to use
these skills effectively. Yes, they
will, but that’s really the only valid reason to have student memorize most
information.
Employers these days don’t really want to know what you
know. They want to know what you can do
with what you know. In other words, they
want to know a potential employee’s skill set.
Unless we’re trying to create the world’s greatest Jeopardy contestants, it’s time to move
our schools toward skills-based curricula rather than spending so much time on
memorization.
Grant Info:
Grant Name:
Patterson Foundation Grants
Funded By:
Patterson Foundation
Description: The foundation provides resources to programs and to nonprofit
organizations in the areas of oral health, animal health, and occupational and
physical rehabilitation. The foundation also supports educational programs, and
programs for youth and for the economically disadvantaged. It also provides
educational scholarships for dependents of Patterson Dental Co. employees.
Grants are made nationwide and in Canada.
Program Areas: Disabilities, Family Services, General
Education, Health/PE, Math, Reading, Science/Environment, Social Studies,
Special Education
Recipients:
Public School, Private School, Higher Education, Other
Proposal Deadline:
5/1/12
Average Amount: $2,000.00 - $20,000.00
Telephone: 651-686-1929
Availability:
All States
