The Trouble with Today’s Teaching
Alfie Kohn’s article Beyond Discipline talks about the “traditional instruction” taking place in the classrooms. Although this is still the way some teachers are teaching in some classrooms I have seen differently in the classroom that I am placed in. With “traditonal instruction” little attention is given to exploring ideas, seeking new solutions, looking for meaning or connections, or attempting to gain deeper understanding of the phenomenia involved (C. M. Charles, Kohn’s Beyond Discipline, pg.192). What I have witnessed in Kohn’s idea of how teaching should be: exploring ideas, seeking new solutions, looking for meaning or connections, or attempting to gain deeper understanding. The constructivist approach, knowing that students must construct knowledge and skills out of the experiences provided in school (C. M. Charles, Kohn’s Beyond Discipline, pg. 193) is emerging or has been emerged in the classroom that I am in. In math class the students no longer just solve a problem they have to understand what the numbers mean and how to take it apart and then write using math vocabulary words how they got the answer. In some cases they don’t solve for answers but come up with strategies on how they would solve the problem by using KWPL (what we know, what we want to know, problem and what we learned). For literacy class the students have to connect to text and use text coding on what they are reading, this is also used in science. With this approach Kohn says that questions asked to students that need answered should not lead to a correct answer, but make students pause, wonder and reflect (C. M. Charles, Kohn’s Beyond Discipline, pg. 194).
Alfie Kohn’s article Beyond Discipline talks about the “traditional instruction” taking place in the classrooms. Although this is still the way some teachers are teaching in some classrooms I have seen differently in the classroom that I am placed in. With “traditonal instruction” little attention is given to exploring ideas, seeking new solutions, looking for meaning or connections, or attempting to gain deeper understanding of the phenomenia involved (C. M. Charles, Kohn’s Beyond Discipline, pg.192). What I have witnessed in Kohn’s idea of how teaching should be: exploring ideas, seeking new solutions, looking for meaning or connections, or attempting to gain deeper understanding. The constructivist approach, knowing that students must construct knowledge and skills out of the experiences provided in school (C. M. Charles, Kohn’s Beyond Discipline, pg. 193) is emerging or has been emerged in the classroom that I am in. In math class the students no longer just solve a problem they have to understand what the numbers mean and how to take it apart and then write using math vocabulary words how they got the answer. In some cases they don’t solve for answers but come up with strategies on how they would solve the problem by using KWPL (what we know, what we want to know, problem and what we learned). For literacy class the students have to connect to text and use text coding on what they are reading, this is also used in science. With this approach Kohn says that questions asked to students that need answered should not lead to a correct answer, but make students pause, wonder and reflect (C. M. Charles, Kohn’s Beyond Discipline, pg. 194).