Manga and anime declared good study tools for kids Children’s books and television shows these days are nothing compared to the ones that many of us had growing up. At least that’s what we tell ourselves. I think back fondly on those days of watching Rugrats and Scooby Doo marathons and scoff at the thought of modern-age children rotting their brains with Spongebob and Annoying Orange. But the fact of the matter is that letting kids subject themselves to those books and animations is important to the development of reading comprehension and critical thinking skills, though the shows now seem like garbage to our fully-developed minds. In Japan, the same sort of issue arises with kids becoming obsessed with manga and anime. Parents may try to insist that their children put away the comics and pick up a real book. Let’s start with the manga. Every time a child rereads their manga of choice, there is something new that they discover. But what about anime? In addition, anime can drastically broaden a child’s vocabulary. Like this:
Are Sugata Mitra's ideas on education doomed to failure? Joe Tibbetts recalls his part in developing the National Curriculum and is depressed by the failure to make education relevant and appropriate. Sugata Mitra is a 61 year old Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University in the far north east of England. He is a genuine polymath, so described because of the wide range of disciplines and subjects in which he has made telling interventions. Mr Mitra asks difficult questions about the ways in which we do education. He’s right of course. In 1971 when Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society was published I was at Bretton Hall (later Leeds University) in the first year of a three year teaching degree. Like vampires in a blood bank we fell upon Illich’s ideas, swallowing them in great gulps and cracking open the seal on the second bottle while still draining the contents of the first. We took exception to this system because it is a useless and silly way to educate people.
C.M. Porto Consciente de que o capital humano é o potencial mais sólido de uma sociedade baseada no conhecimento, o Município do Porto elegeu, na última década, a Educação como eixo prioritário da sua atuação. O reforço da qualificação dos cidadãos constitui o seu principal desafio estratégico que orienta as prioridades definidas em matéria de política educativa, reconhecendo a educação e a formação como fatores centrais do desenvolvimento económico e tecnológico, da coesão social, do desenvolvimento pessoal e do exercício pleno da cidadania. No quadro de uma nova cidadania, aumentam os níveis de exigência e de participação política direta. Os municípios assumem hoje um papel, significativamente, mais relevante e alargado, em matéria de educação, ensaiando modelos de descentralização, autonomia e complementaridades, no quadro das políticas locais de educação.
Citizens Will Make the Future of Cities 'The future of making is changing again, and cities and citizens will lead the way', says an expert of Human-Future interaction. The way we make things is constantly changing. Making can be traced throughout history. The steam engine sparked the Industrial Revolution, shifting the world from handcrafting to mass production. The assembly line and mass production transformed industry after industry and gave birth to the middle class. Over the past decade, making has started to change once again. But this chapter of the maker story is different. This global culture has a name—the maker movement—and you can see its impact through new publications like Make magazine and the fast growth and global reach of makerspaces and maker meetups like Maker Faire. The DIY ethos of making isn’t limited to creating physical objects—stuff. Makers are coming together in civic innovation hackathons to prototype new forms of citizen-led governance.
Studying vs learning There is a fundamental difference between studying and learning in the field of language learning. Being able to speak a language is a skill. A skill is something that is achieved over time through trial and error. Do you remember the first time that you magically started to find the balance on the saddle of your bike? Now, let us suppose that my very enthusiastic father wanted to teach me how to ride a bike by constantly giving me instructions on how to do it. A bike remains upright when it is steered so that the ground reaction forces exactly balance all the other internal and external forces it experiences, such as gravitational if leaning, inertial or centrifugal if in a turn, gyroscopic if being steered, and aerodynamic if in a crosswind. The rider applies torque to the handlebars in order to turn the front wheel and so to control lean and maintain balance. Studying is an act of deliberate learning. Mark and John both get a new language course. Mark examines the book. (*) Footnote:
Finlândia: a melhor educação do mundo é 100% estatal, gratuita e universal Atualizado em 29.08.2015 Follow @tarsocv Curta o Blog do Tarso no Facebook A Finlândia tem a melhor educação do mundo. Na Finlândia a internet é um direito de todos. A Finlândia se destaca em tecnologia mais do que os Estados Unidos da América. Sim, na Finlândia se paga bastante imposto: 50% do PIB. O país dá um banho nos Estados Unidos da América em matéria de educação e de não corrupção. Na Finlândia se incentiva a colaboração, e não a competição. Mas os neoliberais-gerenciais, privatistas, continuam a citar os EUA como modelo. Difícil o Brasil chegar perto do modelo finlandês? Veja o seguinte documentário chamado The Finland Phenomenon, imperdível, elaborado por estadunidenses: Em inglês: Legendas em espanhol: Assista este outro vídeo com legendas em português, sobre a educação na Finlândia. Curtir isso: Curtir Carregando...
Participate in the Citizens Pact! **We particularly encourage small or new groups to apply, as well as motivated members who do not have a local group in their city but would like to use this opportunity to establish a wider group and gather more volunteers. You may hence state in the application form your particular situation or the situation of your group.** The Citizens Pact is an initiative organised by European Alternatives, which brings together a coalition of citizens and organizations joining in to advocate for concrete demands on the Europe they want to live in – one of the outputs will be a citizens’ manifesto to be presented in advance of the European Elections in May 2014. A series of consultations with citizens are being organised in Spring of 2013 in the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, Germany and Slovakia. We have some new funding from the European Parliament for local groups to run events as part of the process. Unfortunately these opportunities are limited to countries inside the EU. FAQs Who?
Don't Go Back to School: How to Fuel the Internal Engine of Lifelong Learning by Maria Popova “When you step away from the prepackaged structure of traditional education, you’ll discover that there are many more ways to learn outside school than within.” “The present education system is the trampling of the herd,” legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright lamented in 1956. So, in 2012, when I found out that writer Kio Stark was crowdfunding a book that would serve as a manifesto for learning outside formal education, I eagerly chipped in. People who forgo school build their own infrastructures. Reflecting on her own exit from academia, Stark articulates a much more broadly applicable insight: A gracefully executed quit is a beautiful thing, opening up more doors than it closes. But despite discovering in dismay that “liberal arts graduate school is professional school for professors,” which she had no interest in becoming, Stark did learn something immensely valuable from her third year of independent study, during which she read about 200 books of her own choosing:
A escola do meu tempo, não a quero de volta Sempre que passa mais um 25 de Abril, e já lá vão muitos, sobretudo nos últimos anos em que as dificuldades têm crescido e atormentado mais gente, são razoavelmente frequentes discursos de descrença e desesperança ouvindo-se enunciados como “afinal o 25 de Abril... e estamos como estamos”, ou “isto está pior do antes do 25 de Abril”. Devo dizer que não simpatizo com este tipo de enunciados e daí estas notas. Sendo certo que estamos atravessar tempos de chumbo e com a confiança em baixo, também é verdade que não é sequer possível comparar o Portugal de hoje com o país de 1973. Para refrescar algumas memórias ou contar alguma história aos mais novos, deixem que vos fale da escola do meu tempo, o tempo dos anos cinquenta e sessenta. Não me esqueço, antes pelo contrário, que a nossa educação, a escola, como tudo o resto, atravessa um período complicado e com problemas muito sérios, mas só a falta de memória ou o desconhecimento sustentam o “antigamente era melhor”.
O que aconteceu ao design social? | The Ressabiator Uma possível contradição: já andamos nesta crise há quase três anos e desde essa altura o design social parece ter desaparecido da ribalta, precisamente na ocasião em que poderia ser mais útil. Não quero dizer que tenha deixado de existir – procurando bem, ainda se encontram iniciativas, eventos e causas ligados ao design social –, mas já não é comum apanhar tantas referências em revistas, conferências, sites e facebooks. A explicação mais simples seria dizer que, pouco oportunamente, passou de moda. Depois de anos a ouvir falar da sua responsabilidade política e ética, os designers simplesmente partiram para outra. Descartaram tudo isso como se fosse uma fonte do ano passado. Uma explicação mais complicada seria lembrar que muito deste design social fazia parte de um movimento mais geral da privatização da assistência social, da tentativa de tornar a caridade numa forma de empreendedorismo. Gostar disto: Gosto Carregando... Filed under: Crítica, Cultura, Design, Economia, Política
Quickwrite: Why Teachers Don’t Read | In an effort to post more frequently I am inaugurating what I will call “quickwrites”, after the popular classroom writing activity. La Lettura, by Achille Boschi (1852-1930) A discussion in the car this morning brought up the question of what would make for a better professional class of teachers. My argument, based on my fifteen years of teaching experience, is that far too many teachers lack the much-touted “lifelong love of learning”. I noted that while many teachers espouse this maxim to their young proteges, they fail to practice it in their own lives, especially when it comes to reading. I understand why people don’t have time. A natural question at this point is, how do I do it. Like this: Like Loading...