philosophy of mathetics

Hebrew Proverb

“Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time.”

Mortimer Jerome Adler (1902-2001)

“The teacher's role in discussion is to keep it going along fruitful lines - be moderating, guiding, correcting and arguing like one more student.”

My Mantra:

Guide by the Side…

…not Sage on the Stage

Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

“I hear and I forget.

I see and I remember.

I do and I understand.”

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934)

“What a child can do today with assistance, she will be able to do by herself tomorrow.”

David Perkins

“The metaphor (coaching) with sports is meant quite seriously... the coach stands back, observes the performance, and provides guidance. The coach applauds strengths, identifies weaknesses, points up principles, offers guiding and often inspiring imagery, and decides what kind of practice to emphasize.”

Mathetics vs. Didactics

John Amos Comenius (1592-1670)

“Let the main object... to seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners learn more.”

James Samuel Coleman (1926-1995)

“Education must develop in youth the capabilities for engaging in intense concentrated involvement in an activity.”

Mark R. Lepper (born 1944)

“Expert tutors often do not help very much. They hang back letting the student manage as much as possible. And when things go awry, rather than help directly they raise questions: 'Could you explain this step again? How did you...?’”

Jean Piaget(1896-1908)

“Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and each time that we try to teach them too quickly, we keep them from reinventing it themselves.”

Jay Wright Forrester (born 1918)

“I believe babies are born as innovative personalities... But our social processes work to stamp out exploration and questioning.”

How did we get here?

Educators are smart people, yet we still haven’t done enough to prepare students for the looming challenges they will surely face.

Why is that?

Peter Michael Senge (born 1947)

“Many children struggle in schools... because the way they are being taught is incompatible with the way they learn.”

Bring schools out of the 20th century

The NCEE report as reported by Time Magazine, featuring the CATWE curriculum model:

1.Creativity

2.Academics

3.Technology

4.World-view

5.Emotional intelligence

International Herald Tribune August, 2008

Gordon Stanley Brown (1907-1996)

“To be a teacher you must be a prophet - because you are trying to prepare people for a world thirty to fifty years into the future.”

Eduardo Chaves

The curriculum will not be a set of subject matters (academic disciplines) organized by grade: it will be a mosaic of competencies, in which each competency will be linked to the skills, to the attitudes, to the values and to the information to develop it

Larry Rosenstock

We tend to structure our curriculum around projects. Through the process of project management students learn about how to define tasks, set target, find information and solve problems proactively on their own.

Lorne McConachie

Working 20 years ago in designing schools, I have seen major movement in designing. 20 years ago, you had computer labs, but now computers are everywhere with wireless connections.

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

“Come to the edge”, he said. They said, “We are afraid.” “Come to the edge”, he said. They said, “We are afraid.” “Come to the edge”, he said. So they came. He pushed them... ….and they flew.