en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/730913 Comments by JMJensen http://bizlex.com/2013/04/new-foundation-to-support-innovation-in-kentucky-education%e2%80%a8/#IDComment621395933 While one must applaud the intention of the project described above, I can only mourn the waste of time and effort and resources at stake. The thinking seems to be that there is a needle out there somewhere in a huge haystack, and it will take millions in money and untold human hours to find it. But what happened is not invisible. From having the best schools in the world at the turn of the century, progressive education came on to convince educators that guidance and development were more important than academic mastery. They advanced one good thing but threw out another. Ever since then, the U.S. system has drifted further and further from the basic principle of mastery of something hour by hour. The result has been a “Learn and Lose” system propagated coast to coast that has these ten characteristics: Courses begin and end by plan. No expressed intent to learn a body of knowledge. No complete hard copy kept permanently. Teaching of small pieces not integrated. Recognition-based tests. Personal interest usually irrelevant. Pretest reviews designed to improve scores. Scheduled tests encourage cramming. “Final” exam declares an end-point to effort. Both learning and non-learning equally dismissed. The alternative is to teach for permanence, which is extremely simple and under the control of every teacher. If anyone is curious about how to do this in practice, I explain it in detail in my 3-volume Practice Makes Permanent series published last year by Rowman and Littlefield. I’m glad to email the proofs to anyone without obligation on request. jjensen@gci.net Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:25:03 +0000 http://bizlex.com/2013/04/new-foundation-to-support-innovation-in-kentucky-education%e2%80%a8/#IDComment621395933 http://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/12/10/afts-randi-weingarten-schools-unions-best-agents-for-social-justice/#IDComment46566559 Since nearly everyone fixates on some aspect of education that isn't the core problem, there's about a 1 in 50 chance that you who read this will get what I say here: The reason "nothing seems to work" is that elementary principles of human psychology and learning are violated nearly all the time nearly everywhere. (If it takes ten years before this is suddenly "discovered'," don't say no one told you). After twenty years working with classroom programming, I had an insight into how students are motivated--that was 17 years ago. It's taken near-disaster in education to get people willing even to listen to a different viewpoint. I can send you a copy of my book explaining this if you ask for it (jjensen@gci.net).. If you want to discuss this, call me at 480-588-6200. John Jensen, Ph.D Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:12:15 +0000 http://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/12/10/afts-randi-weingarten-schools-unions-best-agents-for-social-justice/#IDComment46566559