Yesterday my school brought someone in for an in-service on “brain-based learning.” I think you all know I am skeptical of taking such research and applying to hands-on classroom practices. However, this lady was a good presenter and did not go off into woo-woo land on the brain stuff.
Now here’s the deal: everything she said fit with how I teach. She also mentioned that NCLB violates all we know about how people learn (and how people teach, I would add).
I will eventually be posting on how I am handling the four levels of Latin I’m teaching at this Catholic high school. It is going very well and the environment is good. My topic for discussion is: how careful must we be when we hear presenters outline best practices and we believe that those best practices are what we practice? Are we fooling ourselves? Are the teachers who give the stern advice correct: “All desks in rows, no talking, individual work only, don’t smile until December, lots of homework…….”
What do y’all think?