The Broken Model by Sal Khan and A Short History of Public Schooling

The Broken Model by Sal Khan and A Short History of Public Schooling

Reflection:

After reading The Broken Model by Sal Khan and watching A Short History of Public Schooling it made me consider the changes that need to be made in today’s current public schools. As Khan explained, what is now considered the “normal” once wasn't even a societal concept. Before schooling children were learning at home by doing tasks with their parents, they learned to express themselves in many different ways. However, over time we created a test driven school system. Learning was no longer about many different aspects such as music, arts, and physical abilities. It is now about how well you do on state testing such as the SATS which is reading and math based. This then put students into boxes of whether they were intellectual or not based on their test scores. However, this does not define all students' intellectual abilities. Many students have other strengths that do not pertain to reading and math tests. This connects to Gadner's Multiple Theories of Intelligences which is eight different intelligences that suit individuals strengths. These intelligences are;linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. I believe that these eight different intelligences should become the premise of all public school systems. This would then put an end to students being put into boxes. In addition to this benefiting the students it also would benefit the teachers. Instead of teachers having to follow a strict lesson plan to “teach to the test” they would have more educational freedom. This would bring more fun and interaction into the classrooms. Connecting this back to Khan’s article it may seem like it is difficult to change the “norm” however, the norm wasn’t always there it was created. We can do the same to further change the public schools to better fit everyone's learning and intelligence.

Reflection/Questions/Comments to share: 

What are ways that we can change the school systems to allow all eight intelligences to be incorporated? What would you like to see change in the public schools?