Last night, I was part of one of the most remarkable conversations about “kids today” ever. And it came with two actual exercises that any parent or teacher can do with a child and, as a bonus, you can do it yourself right now and have a better day!
“As Ms. Davidson puts it: “Pundits may be asking if the Internet is bad for our children’s mental development, but the better question is whether the form of learning and knowledge-making we are instilling in our children is useful to their future.” In her galvanic new book Now You See It, Ms. Davidson asks, and … The New York Times, August 8, 2011
Reblogged from hastac.org, written by Cathy Davidson. I am an Edu-Traitor. I am a college professor. What I am about to say may well be perceived as supporting attitudes thought to be against the interests and well-being of college professors. Here goes: I do not think going to university should be the be-all and end-all … Inside Higher Ed, August 9, 2011
Everyone benefits from more education. No one benefits from an educational system that defines learning so narrowly that whole swaths of human intelligence, skill, talent, creativity, imagination, and accomplishment do not count. As an educator, I want to change that hierarchy of values in order to support a more abundant form of education that honors the full range of intellectual possibility and potential for everyone, regardless of whether they are college material or not.
This post originally appeared in The Huffington Post. Kids Are Wired Differently By John M. Eger, Author and Lecturer on Creativity and Innovation, Education and Economic Development In a book to be released later this month (August 18) called Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, … "What Dr. Davidson started turned out to be a tsunami in the use of technology in education. Today we know a lot more about how kids learn and what we need to do to reinvent the curriculum."
A friend recently told me about her child’s inspiring kindergarten teacher, a brilliant woman who had spent most of her life with five-year olds. For a while, she moved up to first grade teaching but, she said, first graders already knew what they couldn’t do. “No kindergarten child says ‘I can’t draw’ or “I can’t sing.’ They think they can do anything. By first grade they already know what they are good and poor at, what they can and what they cannot do.” Think about that. Age 6 and you already have a personal score card.
Reblogged from “Bookish,” a book blog with Maggie Galehouse Allegedly, summer reading is frothy. But for some reason, this summer has brought more than its share of books on the brain and brain science — fascinating stuff but far from the breezy love on the beach stuff we’ve all come to expect when the weather heats … "Now You See It" named one of top three "Brain-y Books" for summer reading
A preview of the future from an educational innovator. Davidson (The Future of Thinking, 2010, etc.), who codirects the annual HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning competitions, describes an experiment where most of a group told to count passes between basketball players in a short film fails to spot a person who walks through the … NYSI in Kirkus Reviews
Five New Members Join the National Council on the Humanities
WASHINGTON (July 14, 2011) — Jim Leach, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), today swore in five new members of the Endowment’s advisory board at NEH headquarters. The board, called the National Council on the Humanities, consists of 26 distinguished citizens. The five new Council members, Albert J. Beveridge III, Constance M. Carroll, Cathy N. Davidson, Paula Barker Duffy, and Martha Wagner Weinbergwere nominated by President Barack Obama in September and December of 2010 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 26, 2011. The new members begin their terms today at the Council’s summer 2011 meeting on July 14-15.
The answer to the question in my headline title, “Is It Dumb to Give Preschoolers Standardized Tests?” is unequivocal: yes. It’s dumb. Don’t do it. Please don’t do it. It’s a false metric with false goals that simply reinforces the twentieth-century’s interminable confusion of “standards” with “standardization.” We can do so much better.