I was reading Bill Ferriter's blog, The Tempered Radical, and he posted a recent discussion highlighting the division between education theorists and front-line educators. As one of the readers posted:
"Unlike some lunatic educational theorists who believe that teachers should be mere "facilitators" who only allow children to "discover" the "answers" and "wisdom" that are within each of them, my business card reads "Teacher."
This got me thinking. One contemporary line of education thinking posits that the best way for students to learn is to explore their own line of questioning (inquiry learning). What if, instead of plowing through standards like snow on an Ohio highway, student/learners were required to create, research, and answer one question every two weeks or so in each of their content areas? This has been, in my (limited) experience about the amount of time I require to teach a high-quality lesson to my students. Could we then use the Content Standards (state and national) as more of a guideline that can be given to students to guide their learning?
Obviously, this idea has a few flaws... I have no idea how you would grade this as a teacher. Additionally, you would need students to be highly intrinsically motivated. But, i think this would hold great potential to help students learn... possibly helping students become more self- and intrinsically motivated.
What do you think?
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