I spent time watching several TED Talk videos of different topics. One was about redefining the dictionary. To be honest I wasn't really sure what message the speaker was trying to get across. She was very funny. She poked fun at the way dictionaries are set up, both in print and online. Dictionaries have looked the same for centuries, and she feels it's time for some revamping. She feels people are missing in the learning of some valuable words simply based on the way dictionaries are organized.
Another video was about a project done in Portland at Casco Bay High School. It looked very cool! It was a research project about the homeless in Portland. Kids designed questions and talked to people who are and were homeless, spent time working in shelters, and designed a multi-media presentation that explores the homeless problem in Portland and ideas on how to help fix it. The kids were engaged, excited and learning using a variety of resources.
The third video was about how education opportunities are so vastly different in third world countries that are beyond very poor. Most kids were dropping out and getting involved in illegal businesses to make money and help take care of their families. The saw education as boring and useless to them. When some computers and mobile phones were brought in this began to change the way these poor students viewed education. Technology brought fun and purpose to what they were learning. The speaker went on to say there are three things we all need to do to improve education. We need to reinvent the way schools are structured. Learning should start from questions and not curriculum. Second, we need to supplement what we already have in place. We need new radical thinking about education and how to get kids engaged. Last, we need to transform education. Students need to learn in new innovative ways. All of these things need to happen in all schools, but especially in those that are in poor countries and inner cities. The education system is not fair in those environments.
I have to go find the videos on the CBHS homeless project and education in third world countries. I think that getting students involved in understanding about poverty and humanizing the poor is so important. One of the biggest impressions made on me while living abroad was seeing first hand how so many lived with so little all over Africa.
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