Words I Never Said, Things I Never Did

I have often hesitated to do things thinking that no one really cares. I have hesitated to say things because I have thought that no one wants to listen. However I have come to realize that I can not possibly know what people want to hear and that I have no idea what my impact maybe. I have had several ideas about how to improve education. Many I have kept to myself or have not shared with many. I have done this for many different reasons none probably justified. Well its time to get the ideas out.

I am very interested in a field called self-regulated learning and to be short educational researchers conduct studies in this field to determine how people learn independently. I wrote earlier this week on my twitter page that we probably should become more interested in student's abilities to learn new information and apply old information than exactly what they now. You see if we were more focused on teaching students how to learn than they would be more prepared for everything. I'm sure most of you have heard the line give a man a fish and you feed him for today, but teach him how to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Such a simple premise one that I believe we may be missing in today's schools however. We have not spent enough time thinking about how to teach students to teach themselves. It is a skill and it is teachable.

The thing about this skill I'll call it independent learning is that researchers have been investigating it, certain classroom teachers have been awesome at fostering it, and generally as whole human race we know about it. Unfortunately humans don't always share these skills in the most efficient ways. I pretty sure if you thought hard enough you could think of reasons why some would not want others to have this skill (greed, hate, etc). I'm going to do my part though to make sure people do know what the skills are and how to teach students how to become independent learners. No more words going unsaid from me (S/O to Lupe). I'll see you over at the other site InspireThinking . I'll be rapping about Dr. Bandura (google his education g-status) and how his and other's findings translate to education.

Peace,

P