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CAT Tracks for August 8, 2018
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE |
From the article:
Amen!
From the New York Times
Make Your Daughter Practice Math. She’ll Thank You Later.
CAT Tracks Editor's Note:
Yes, it's been a loooong time since I posted an education article.
There are two reasons for that:
The article above gives me hope that the world of education as I knew it/practiced it may not be dead after all.
Maybe, just maybe, when the long-term data shows that learning has actually regressed during the party-hearty/guide-on-the-side years, a new generation of sages will take the stage.
"All learning isn’t — and shouldn’t be — 'fun.' Mastering the fundamentals is why we have children practice scales and chords when they’re learning to play a musical instrument, instead of just playing air guitar. It’s why we have them practice moves in dance and soccer, memorize vocabulary while learning a new language and internalize the multiplication tables. In fact, the more we try to make all learning fun, the more we do a disservice to children’s abilities to grapple with and learn difficult topics. As Robert Bjork, a leading psychologist, has shown, deep learning involves 'desirable difficulties.' Some learning just plain requires effortful practice, especially in the initial stages. Practice and, yes, even some memorization are what allow the neural patterns of learning to take form."
