Random Discoveries!

Nytimes.com has a lot of goodies that the paper copy of the Times can't provide: old but still relevant articles and studies, definitions of key terms, and columnists' blogs. Being a very UNbusy exchange student, I have decided that I would spend much of my free time educating myself about the world by reading through the Times thoroughly, which has brought me to some of those unusual places found only online.

One is a blog called "Lesson Plans," about using new teaching techniques "in a complicated world." Today's post was about a blog that a teacher in Alaska started for her students called "Tell the Raven." Each student can post on the blog and comment on their peers' posts.

The education articles on this blog are usually boring or sappy, but I actually thought this was VERY cool. Having blogged for over a month now and published somewhere around 25 posts, I can say that the experience of writing a post is entirely different from the traditional essay or even the good ol' "reading journals" in a number of important ways.

1. Blog posts can be about any topic while still providing necessary direction. In sophomore year, my English teacher Mr. Young often had us write "prose sketches," or short, rough essays about the topic of our choice. This, however, often left students more confused than liberated. There are a zillion and one things a person could write about. Blogging, however, gives just the right amount of freedom. Each blog has a general purpose, some form of a loose heading, like "An American exchange student's adventures through South America" or "Perez Hilton's celebrity gossip." The blogger has a general idea of what to write about, and can always rely on just writing about his day, as boring as it may have been. Or...he can go on a wild, unwarranted tangent about education.

2. Blogs are incredibly personal. Essays are usually academic; we have to put on airs to discuss the literary merit of John Ashberry, or Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness. Because a blogger has such total control over his posts - no rubric, no mandatory topic - he also has the power to write them in any way he chooses.

3. Blogs are actually read by other people. When you write an essay, it's specifically for one teacher; there's less pride in something that's only read by one person, and also less genuinity because no matter what a teacher says, students are always writing for the teacher. When writing something for a variety of people, I feel like I'm producing something original and worthwhile.

In my opinion, blogs have assets that make up for most of the shortcomings of other student writing.

So of course, I thought this experimental education in Denali, Alaska is absolutely brilliant, like a lightbulb that goes off saying ah...if only Staples were doing this...

I'm accustomed to new teaching techniques...my Chinese teacher Mr. Fray had us do a TON of projects using different software, websites, media, etc. Sometimes they didn't work out, sometimes they did; all were worth the effort in creating a new curriculum that could incoporate the best teaching tools available. While "English" is a pretty well-established curriculum, I think it would be worth it for English teachers to look into blogs as a new tool to improving student writing.

(Of course, after reading this article about the Alaskan teacher and thinking she's a genius, I remembered that one particularly...noteworthy...Staples teacher was already doing this last year. So maybe it's not so revolutionary. Regardless...it's still very cool and something that I think more teachers should check out).

Since I'm on a whole "education" theme today, I should probably talk a little more in depth about the Argentinean education system.

I must warn you first: please excuse, what my aunt Cindy called, any displays of "Yankee cultural elitism." I went to a really rocking school, I got a great education and I can see some pretty blatant differences between a Westport education and a San Vicente education.

First is technology. This is obviously a factor that can't be changed, not easily anyway. The U.S. is simply way more advanced technologically; we have more computers and better computers. My American friends might not realize just how much of a difference this makes. Our education is based primarily on the computer; it is impossible to be a Staples student without a computer and an internet connection. Argentina is still stuck on the pen and paper. If students find some information they need for a class on the internet, they don't usually print it out; they copy it down. Argentina is called a developing, not third-world, country, yet its technology lags far behind the U.S. This makes a huge difference in how quickly students can learn; I have a much greater appreciation for always having new computers available to use, even if I have to wait in line at the library. In San Vicente, they're still on Windows 98.

Staples education is without a doubt fast-paced, especially in Honors or AP classes. Teachers talk and you write, getting as much as you can. You abbreviate, you learn to pick out the important info, you bullet, you number, you do whatever you have to do to get the notes you need in your notebook. Sometimes nice teachers will pass out handouts. Argentina: not so much.

Argentina is about rote memorization. When a teacher wants you to write something down in your notebook, she will read each line very slowly to make sure you copy it verbatim. I don't understand this. I can understand not passing out handouts - making copies all the time gets to be expensive. But why aren't students expected to pay closer attention, to allow teachers to speak more rapidly, maybe use the chalkboard if they really want to accentuate a point? My favorite class so far is literature, not just because I like the subject in general, but because the teacher forces students to read, think and discuss rather than just copy.

Teaching students to copy and memorize the material they need to know will allow them to be successful in a specific field, but it will only allow them to do what has been done before, and how it has been done before. Teaching students to think and expand, to draw their own conclusions - that teaches them how to improve on what has been done before, and that, after all, is the definition of economic and social progress, isn't it?