Education for band 3 students

上年看了幾本教育書籍

作者不約而同對當代教育頗有微詞，認為未能為「另類」的可造之才作出相應的調節，成功地因材施教。

其中《學習要像加勒比海盜》

James Marcus Bach: Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar

的第 1 章寫得最得我心 [其餘章節不甚了了，可能沒有其父 (《天地一沙鷗》作者) 的寫作天份吧]，使我恨不得將整章印發給討厭上學的學生看。因他說到

Education is important. School is not. I didn’t need school. Neither do you.

School can help your education. Maybe you like school. If it’s fun, stay with it.

If you’re not happy, leave this place. If you think there’s no other way to get your education, or if you think you can’t get a good job without this place, then look at me.

School is temporary. Education is not. If you want to prosper in life: find something that fascinates you and jump all over it. Don’t wait for someone to teach you; your enthusiasm will attract teachers to you. Don’t worry about diplomas or degrees; just get so good that no one can ignore you.

既然絕大部分的他們上課心不在焉，學無所得，還來下來作啥？借本田宗一郎先生的一句話︰「學習不強迫，遲到不允許。」《本田神話 : 本田宗一郎奮鬥史》(頁 237)，他們可以選擇不學，但若決定上課就必定要遵守規矩 (現在行為問題嚴重的踢不走，又沒足夠資源留他們級，禍亂的種種很多時便是沒法「教得嚴」而起的)。

幸運地，原文出版社提供了整章供預覽

Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar : How Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Secrets-of-a-Buccaneer-Scholar/James-Marcus-Bach/9781439123508/excerpt

內文除提到他對學校教育的觀感、勤奮自學的途徑外，更說到教育的真諦

Education is not a heap of facts. It’s not the hours we spend in classrooms, or the way we answer test questions. It’s not indoctrination, nor worshipping the ancients, nor obedience to authority, not taking anyone’s word for what is true, false, vital, banal.

Education is the “you” that emerges from the learning you do.

Knowledge is part of my education only if it changes me. Knowledge does not improve my education unless it changes me for the better. It might make me more powerful, more insightful, more engaged with life. But I must become more interesting or useful to myself in some way, or there’s no improvement.

No one on earth has a choice about whether or not to be educated. But we do have a choice about what form that education will take. It’s a life’s work.

他的看法讓我想找些提倡 deschooling/unschooling/homeschooling 的資料來看，其中少不了 John Holt 的兩大著作 “How children learn” 及 “How children fail”

在未看之前，單是看 John Holt 的語錄已經深深認同之

“Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.”
~John Holt~ Growing Without Schooling magazine, no. 40 (1984)

“In a nutshell, people whose lives are hard, boring, painful, meaningless—people who suffer—tend to resent those who seem to suffer less than they do, and will make them suffer if they can. People who feel themselves in chains, with no hope of ever getting them off, want to put chains on everyone else.” ~
John Holt, Teach Your Own, Introduction.

“What makes people smart, curious, alert, observant, competent, confident, resourceful, persistent – in the broadest and best sense, intelligent- is not having access to more and more learning places, resources, and specialists, but being able in their lives to do a wide variety of interesting things that matter, things that challenge their ingenuity, skill, and judgement, and that make an obvious difference in their lives and the lives of people around them.”
~John Holt~ Teach Your Own

“Of course, a child may not know what he may need to know in ten years (who does?), but he knows, and much better than anyone else, what he wants and needs to know right now, what his mind is ready and hungry for. If we help him, or just allow him, to learn that, he will remember it, use it, build on it. If we try to make him learn something else, that we think is more important, the chances are that he won’t learn it, or will learn very little of it, that he will soon forget most of what he learned, and what is worst of all, will before long lose most of his appetite for learning anything.”
~John Holt~ Teach Your Own

“Children do not need to be made to learn to be better, told what to do or shown how. If they are given access to enough of the world, they will see clearly enough what things are truly important to themselves and to others, and they will make for themselves a better path into that world then anyone else could make for them”
~John Holt~, (1923-1985) American Educator, How Children Fail

“The child is curious. He wants to make sense out of things, find out how things work, gain competence and control over himself and his environment, and do what he can see other people doing. He is open, perceptive, and experimental. He does not merely observe the world around him, He does not shut himself off from the strange, complicated world around him, but tastes it, touches it, hefts it, bends it, breaks it. To find out how reality works, he works on it. He is bold. He is not afraid of making mistakes. And he is patient. He can tolerate an extraordinary amount of uncertainty, confusion, ignorance, and suspense … School is not a place that gives much time, or opportunity, or reward, for this kind of thinking and learning.”
~John Holt~, (1923-1985) American Educator, How Children Learn

“What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out.”
~John Holt~ Teach Your Own

“It is as true now as it was then that no matter what tests show, very little of what is taught in school is learned, very little of what is learned is remembered, and very little of what is remembered is used. The things we learn, remember, and use are the things we seek out or meet in the daily, serious, nonschool parts of our lives.”
~John Holt~ How Children Fail

via

Wikiquote – John Holt
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Holt

JOHN HOLT QUOTES
http://sandradodd.com/johnholt

John Holt Quotes
http://sandradodd.com/holt/quotes

可惜，跟外國不同的是 homeschooling 在香港是違法的。

Homeschool. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved January 01, 2010, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/homeschooling

在 2001 年，代表教育界的張文光議員曾作出以下的詢問，回應的是當時的教育統籌局局長

教育局 – 立法會問題第 17 條 (書面答覆)
http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=136&langno=2&UID=10546

(一) 政府有否政策、指引或標準，容許家長不把子女送往學校而把他們留在家裏接受教育；若有，詳情如何；若否，原因為何；
(三) 當局會否檢討是否容許孩童在家接受教育的政策；若會，詳情如何；若否，原因為何？

政府的政策，是為所有年齡介乎六至十五歲的兒童提供九年免費普及教育。因此，這個年齡組別的兒童必須在學校接受教育。我們沒有計劃檢討或更改這項政策。鑑於本港目前的社會經濟狀況，我們深信，兒童在學校接受教育，對他們有最大裨益。學校可以為兒童提供更均衡和有系統的正規課程和課外活動，讓他們有機會與同儕和師長互相切磋砥礪。這對於兒童在德、智、體、缌[群？]、美各方面的均衡發展，至為重要。

無可否認，讓孩童入學有助他們熟習社交生活，建立社交圈子，但這是否表示需要到學校這個地方？社區中心、遊樂場均有此效果，不是嗎？與其浪費人力、物力、孩童的時間等珍貴的資源，讓不適合學校生活的他們自由發揮不是更好嗎？說什麼「鑑於本港目前的社會經濟狀況，我們深信，兒童在學校接受教育，對他們有最大裨益」，「14 歲時離家，16 歲中輟」James Marcus Bach 的成功便是個好例子推翻它。在著作《學習要像加勒比海盜》中，他便回應了沒學歷他能找到工作的事實

Isn’t it true that many employers won’t even consider you unless you have lots of formal education?
Maybe it’s true. So what? I’m not trying to get a job with many employers. One at a time is good enough. There are always some who value what is truly useful, such as technical skill and the ability to play well with others. Find those people.

而局長的回應便與書中那名覺得 James 演講危言聳聽的教師相似，以下是摘自第 1 章的內容

As I was leaving, the teacher joined me.

“Mr. Bach, I want you to know that I will recommend against you speaking at our school again,” she said. “Your message is dangerous for children to hear.”

She was almost right. It was dangerous, what I said — dangerous for her. To maintain a docile herd of students, her school needs them to accept certain truths:

• You must study what we tell you. What we say is the only thing that matters.• You must pass our tests. Our tests measure the only important things about you.• You must attend school. Only through schooling can you hope to enjoy a good life.

This is what I call schoolism — the belief that schooling is the necessary and exclusive way to get a good education. Must and only!

“I told them about myself,” I said, “and how I came to be here. I told them the truth.”

“It may be true for you,” she replied. “But these kids aren’t super smart like you. They don’t come from well-off families. They’re barely staying in school, and you just told them that they don’t need to be here. They do need to be here!”

“Ma’am, my eighth-grade English teacher told me I would have to pump gas for a living if I didn’t graduate high school. She was wrong about my future. Isn’t it possible your students will surprise you, too? I think any of your students can do what I did — in high tech, journalism, business, art, or any number of different fields. And they have a lifetime to develop their talents. What’s the rush?”

“Yes they could be successful if they put in the work,” she conceded. “But I don’t think they heard that part of your message. I’m barely holding on to some of these kids as it is. I’m afraid you’ve made my job much harder, Mr. Bach. Some of them are going to take a ‘what the hell’ attitude instead of applying themselves.”

“So what if they do?” I replied. “This is America. They probably won’t starve. They probably won’t be eaten by wolves. If they don’t care about education, they may be forced to work at low-skilled jobs they won’t enjoy, such as fast food or house cleaning. However bad those fates may sound, they are neither fatal nor permanent. Or perhaps they will accidentally educate themselves by starting a new business, building things, or doing theatre, music, or sports. Are you worried they’ll turn to crime? Then show them more options, not fewer. They will learn and grow from anything that happens, unless they believe there is no hope. Your job is not to make them huddle quietly in a corral, but to help them get out there and seek their fortunes. Show them a way!”

I had to shrug about this as I drove back to work. I’m no political activist. I can never convince the bureaucrats to abandon their mythology of social order. I think very differently than most people about social order. I’m a buccaneer.

另，John Holt 便曾說過︰「既然我們無法決定哪一種知識在未來最有用，那麼現在在學校教的，就一點意義也沒有。所以，學校教育應該教出具有學習能力、並且樂於學習的人，使他學習必須學習的任何事物。」

國立中正大學教研所 – 知識管理與教育革新發展之學理分析
http://www.ccunix.ccu.edu.tw/~deptedu/Chinese/discussion3/paper1.htm

亦即是說正規課程的內容並非重點，但真正重要的 Information Literacy (資訊素養) 卻連像樣的課也沒有，這半調子的坐牢式學校教育真能教育學生嗎？

最後來段適合對正規課程沒興趣學生和家長參考的影片 (選擇很像當年的我哩)

公共電視 －「公民眾意院」流浪大學生不如技職生？

建議欠學習動機的學生閱讀