Blurb-blurb-blurb! (Sounds like it too!)
I get a near panic attack when confronted with business or academic lingo. And this is coming from a long-time fan of bombastic vocabulary so it must mean something.
Consider this case: I have developed a new research interest: alternative education. While researching books on the subject, I found these two blurbs:
- “A comprehensive book with nearly 90 proven instructional strategies for all students, especially those who are at risk of academic failure. Features specific teacher-tested methods for increasing achievement in reading, writing, mathematics, and oral communication. Explore several ways to involve students actively in lessons; use thematic, interdisciplinary curriculums; and accommodate students' individual learning styles. Included are nearly 20 teaching strategies for culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students.”
- “This text presents practicing teachers and teacher trainees with a wide variety of well-developed, research-based models of teaching, from which to select for particular purposes and for assembling into high quality curriculum. New features in the seventh edition include stronger coverage of constructivism, meta-cognition, and the proximal principle; the addition of the Picture Word Inductive Model; incorporation of 150 new research references; new scenarios, research, and applications; and new descriptions of multi-model curricula and studies of their effects.”
Given that I am interested in human-friendly education that does not chuck the creative and the rebellious out of the system and favors the madly academic, can you suggest, based on the blurbs, which book?
4 comments:
Based on the blubs ramla, my assesment would be that the first book is more related to ensuring that kids study, which may not be what you want. Like you said "Given that I am interested in human-friendly education that does not chuck the creative and the rebellious out of the system and favors the madly academic" So i'll go for number 2, it seems it gives quite a bit of insight into how educational models work rather than just giving out techniques.
Again, this depends on how easily you grasp the book, as i suspect the latter one will be a hard read.
Best of luck on dat
Thanks Mansoor, suggestion noted. I'd certainly check out more than one books. However, I am increasingly looking for simplicity in everything - because I feel a lot of academic ideas are lost to the world because a great part of our brain's energy goes in decoding them, rather than understanding the idea itself.
My idea of education, especially for this age of creativity is to have more inclusive education that appeals to the long-ognored group of people who are turned off by the effort of trying to understand what is being fed into their minds. Rather, they should get to the point.
It's a debate between accessibility or not. I'll share more on the subject. JazakAllah for your feedback.
I would suggest you steer clear of both. there is much better material available on the internet today ... and I would point you towards reading John Taylor Gatto and Roger Schank on the subject, too, along with Alfie Kohn. Much of their works are available on the 'Net and they are accessible, too, if you write to them.
Thanks for the suggestions, Zak! I found some very interesting material on your blog, too.
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