Comments on: Children: Products or People?

By: Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:32:36 +0000

I guess a good way to compare the shcools OBE to a homeschooling family is if the parents picked a few goals like “recite all the presidents by age 6″ and applied that and other goals (even your examples) to ALL their children. Equally.

Yeah, I think schools would probably function somewhat better if the ratio was 1:10, but I’d be scared to think how much administration they would think they needed.

By: Kim c

Kim c — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:20:08 +0000

Well, I usually am cynical, but it reminds me a little of advice I’ve seen in homeschooling circles, before you decide how you’ll homeschool your child, think about what you want for the child. Is your goal to have a happy kid? Is it to produce a college bound kid? A professional? A tradesman? A well-rounded person? An adaptable person? It is often based on what scenario you think is most likely or appropriate. I’m not saying that is the right approach, but it is something parents consider when they start homeschooling their kids. How is that different? I guess the big difference is that the parent is considering what would work for their individual child and not using a cookie cutter method. I often wonder how many employees a school system would have to have in order to give kids the one-on-one they’d need to learn and understand. It might not be a one ot one ratio, but more like one to ten.

By: Jean Shankle

Jean Shankle — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:36:36 +0000

Have you ever participated in a course using Moodle? We are using Moodle for our social studies project. The theory behind this open source LMS is social constructivism, which I suspect you might agree with. We put the resources up and the learner/participant partakes of those which they need to construct the knowledge they are seeking. We have a plan (syllabus), but beyond that, the learner decides what they need. HSLDA mentioned us on their high school blog. Our project is at http;//etraining.aretao.com.

I think OBE is a myth because even when you have a classroom full of nodding heads, you never know what is inside them.

By: Becky

Becky — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 14:24:58 +0000

Yup. We have outcome-based learning (or is outcome based education) here in Alberta too. It’s one of the reasons we hs lol.

It absolves the school/teacher/provincial education department from their responsibilities to teach children, since they have to teach only up to and until the “outcome” is met. No challenging, no stretching, and heaven forbid, no “rabbit trails.” Rather like those friends I remember from elementary school who were told to write a one-page composition and would put a period at the bottom of the looseleaf sheet of paper even before writing a word.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:02:38 +0000

Sam – nope, not a bit. The outcomes have been predetermined by the Dept of Ed. A fancy, noble-sounding name for goals like:
-increasing test scores (we have one of the worst literacy rates in the country)
-having all children reading at grade level by Grade 2

And stressing high achievement and tecnological skills.

By: sam

sam — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:57:30 +0000

Does outcome based learning take into account what the kids want? In addition to your assessment, this was my first thought on reading the description.

By: Carlotta

Carlotta — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:56:00 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. Thank you for putting it so clearly and will put myself to thinking about your last point.