Changing Education Paradigms (covers ADHD, divergent thinking, etc)

[Nixie]

Divergent Thinking

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U"]YouTube - RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms[/ame]

My supervisor gave me this link about Divergent Thinking and modern education. I found it very enlightening especially since I have spoken at great lengths about the complete lack of Critical Thinking abilities being fostered within education. I remember being in the 6th grade and getting an art assignment where we were told to make a Christmas Card and bring it in for grading. I created a styrofoam snowman with snow and presents around him with Happy Holidays written on the corner but it was basically a sculpture/craft project on a piece of paper and not just a folded card. I found it strange that no one else made such a card. My teacher asked to keep it for display and to show it off for future students. I mean, I remember figuring that it was an ART class and some type of artisic bent was a given but didn't realize that most everybody else didn't think in such a way.

The clip is about 11 minutes long but if you are interested in education it has some great points.

 

[KazeCraven]

A few things:

There is a great deal of talking about divergent thinking, but who is to say that the quality of this thinking would be improved? It's not just about coming up with ideas, but also being able to evaluate ideas and come up with new ones.

Also, I think some of these things are already taken care of. We have art classes and whatnot already in most schools. I think much of the issue of poor education comes down to schools simply lacking good teachers and the resources to see to each individual's needs.

Part of public education is about teaching children conformity too. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it seems that many people are more interested in having children behave in certain ways and believe certain things rather than in cultivating their creative potential.

That being said, it is an interesting issue which I think we should consider. What would a divergent thinking curriculum look like anyway?

 

[Odyne]

I have always cringed when someone tells me that a relative or sibling "suffers" from ADHD and is being medicated for it. Most of those cases, the children only perceive the world and react to it differently. They are hungry for new things to learn.

I very much liked the allegory that was presented in the video: school and the educational system as a whole works in the same fashion a factory does. Thus, box-ing everyone's way of thinking and expression to norms that have no other ground but conformation.

Calvin summed it up pretty nicely

It was a very interstring video to watch [MENTION=3096]Sonyab[/MENTION], thank you for sharing this.

 

[barbad0s]

RSA Animate

[video=youtube;zDZFcDGpL4U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&fmt=18[/video]

Discuss!

 

[middle1]

<-adhd

I totally agree with divergent thinking. You cannot tell my six year old daughter that anything is impossible, she will always find another solution, maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but she never stops looking for answers. I wonder if she will lose that attitude the older she gets. Seems like a lot of kids her age already have. :/

 

[aeon]

Their point is well-taken — it captures a sentiment I have expressed for years. We’re on the edge of a tremendous change in culture — one that will be forced by the hand of chance, and of consequences.

That said, the bit about ADHD was off the mark. Are there children being medicated who shouldn’t be? Undoubtedly. At the same time, there are many children who would benefit from a Dx and Rx, but never get it. The stories of those who make it to adulthood without their disorder ever having been recognized or treated are testament to the cost, both personal and social, of missing the signs of ADHD — to say nothing about ignoring it altogether, or misdiagnosing it as something else.

There may be debate about treatment and assessment, but to the disorder’s existence itself? Dangerous drugs? In the amounts efficacious, and taken as prescribed, the medicines used for the treatment of ADHD are among the safest in the pharmacopoeia. Also, those drugs are not anesthetics — in either the literal or figurative sense.

ADHD treatment doesn’t remove a person’s ability to think divergently. Indeed, addressing the disorder might allow for divergent thinking that is creative, i.e., original ideas that are of value to oneself and others — not because of their content alone, but because the ability to articulate those ideas and bring them into the world in a way that they might be received by others would be present.

ADHD is poorly named — it isn’t a deficit of attention at all. It is a deficit in the ability to control, direct, and modulate attention — and that’s not some gift we’re robbing our children of. It is a developmental and cognitive disorder, nothing more, nothing less, and when untreated, it can have tragic consequences — inasmuch as I define the non-realization and subsequent loss of human potential as tragic.


cheers,
Ian

 

[Nixie]

LOL I already posted this awhile back I think. Yea, I never did learn to do that show thread thingy. I thought it was great.

 

[darth_tater]

I agree that public education kills divergent thinking. But "most great learning happens in groups"? He doesn't give examples or substantiate that claim.