Mom Behind the Curtain

every mom wants to be an all-powerful wizard

Consider a Liberal Arts College – how to choose a college part 1/5

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

How to choose a college - reasons to consider a liberal arts college over larger, highly ranked, research universities. And reasons not to.It’s that time of year again. College application deadlines are approaching and seniors are trying to figure out how to choose a college or university to apply to. Where do they want to go to college? And why should they choose one college or university over another. What are the different types of colleges and universities? There are lots of choices!

At freshman orientation for our second child, I greatly appreciated that the principal started trying to address how competitive our high school had become.

He pointed out that 90% of the class will not be in the top 10%.

Obvious math, I know. But he was pointing this out because the idea was becoming prevalent that if you weren’t in the top 10% of the class, you were doomed to attend a second rate college or university and wouldn’t be successful. Therefore, “everyone” was chasing the top 10% so they wouldn’t be left behind. But when you embrace that reasoning, 90% of the kids sitting in orientation would be “left behind” and doomed to be unsuccessful.

A depressing idea.

90% of our children are living with constantly being told that they are failures.

No wonder everyone is scared and chasing the top 10%!

As an alternative to having the goal of attending only elite universities, he suggested considering the colleges proposed in Colleges that Change Lives, by Loren Pope.…

Read More »

SAT Study Tip – Raise your SAT score by watching movies! – SAT movies

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

SAT tip study hack - The old College Board SAT vocabulary type questions are gone, but there are still SAT vocabulary words in the reading passages. Here's a fun SAT study tip!While the old College Board SAT vocabulary type questions are gone, you’ll still find SAT vocabulary words in the reading passages. Studying for a standardized test can be such a drag, you need to incorporate some fun SAT study tips. When you’re engaged, your more likely to retain the information. Here’s a fun SAT study tip.

At the beginning of the summer I told my daughters that I wanted to watch movies with them – lots and lots of movies!

For their education.

Any literary movie they wanted to see.

To which my oldest slyly asked, “Like 50 Shades of Gray?”

Ha ha!

Um, no….

Read More »

Beauty and the Beast Official Teaser Poster

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

Beauty and the Beast Disney Life-Action official movie teaser poster.I just received the teaser poster for  Disney’s upcoming live-action re-telling of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. It’s gorgeous! The movie will be an adaptation of the animated version with both new and old musical numbers. We’re big fans of musicals so we’ll look forward to this! Not to mention one of my girls is a big fan of Emma Watson, who’ll be portraying Belle….

Read More »

Most Likely to Succeed – Learn more Part 11/11

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

Most Likely to Succeed - change the antiquated structure of education to prepare students for jobs and create happier, healthier, more creative individuals.Like I said at the beginning of this post series, Most Likely to Succeed points out many concerns with the current educational system that I agree with, and proposes some of the best solutions I’ve seen to correct these problems.

Children hate school and doing well in school doesn’t necessarily lead to success; school doesn’t have to be this way and is not teaching our children skills for the jobs that will be available to them, ones that can’t be replaced by machines. Our current educational system was designed over a hundred years ago for a vastly different world and is going to have to change to keep up with the world….

Read More »

Cut the School Curriculum – Most Likely to Succeed Part 10/11

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

To change learning to be more in-depth the way it is presented in Most Likely to Succeed, we're going to have to cut the school curriculum.The other thing that is going to have to be changed with project based learning – or more student exploration type learning – is the size of school curriculum.

It’s going to have to be cut.

Drastically.

I am constantly told by administrators and teachers that the current curriculum is too broad and too specific to adequately teach in a school year….

Read More »

The problems with group projects – Most Likely to Succeed Part 9/11

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

Most Likely to Succeed - For group projects like those portrayed at High Tech High in Most Likely to Succeed, schools will have to structure, teach and grade projects differently.In my last post I mentioned that ranking our kids against each other isn’t useful because companies don’t need the best engineer, they need ten “of the best” engineers who can work together. They need kids who can work in groups. That’s the whole reason given for all the group projects my kids have been assigned at school. But in the past, school group projects have had all sorts of problems, especially for top achieving kids.

To look at this, I’ll again refer back to the documentary Most Likely to Succeed and how they do group projects at High Tech High. And for this method of learning to work another thing (besides how we think about grades) that would have to change at our school is how we do group projects….

Read More »

Grades – What are they for? Most Likely to Succeed Part 8/11

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

What do student grades mean? Are they a measure for improving learning? Or a way to rank kids against each other so we can identify the "best" kids?In my last post, I mentioned that changing how learning happens in school is going to mean changing how we see grades. Let me explain what I mean. What are grades for? Just exactly why are grades important in school?

I am going to guess that initially, as class sizes got larger and standardization was occurring,  grades were meant to be a measure for both students and teachers. Some way was needed to assess whether or not the material had been learned.

In this system, a “high” grade would indicate that enough of the information has been understood to move on to a different or more complex topic. (Remember when a 70 was considered “passing” and an indication that you could move on?)…

Read More »

Project Based Learning – Most Likely to Succeed Part 7/11

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

Most Likely to Succeed presents the best solution I've seen to the problems of run-away tests and hours of homework - project based learning.The response at our school district’s showing of Most Likely to Succeed was overwhelmingly positive. The film did a good job of pointing out all the weaknesses of our current system, but left you with an uplifting feeling. This was a welcome change from all of the other research I’ve done that has confirmed my fears that something is drastically wrong with our current educational system, but with little to offer in the way of change other than patching over some real problems.

I think the positive response was also in part to a growing concern I have seen in our district about the amount of homework and anxiety in our kids. Parents did bring up some valid concerns, some of which were answered by other parents present who work for testing agencies, state education agencies, and universities. The concerns were mainly centered on project based learning.

As I said, the documentary gave the impression that project based learning was the only option. Even though it was acknowledged early on in the discussion in our district that it was just one option, the discussion stayed pretty much on project based learning. The long and the short of it is…

Read More »

High Tech High – Most Likely to Succeed Part 6/11

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

Most Likely to Succeed go in search of a new model for teaching, an alternative to memorizing facts and to regurgitate them on tests - High Tech High.After pointing out the many flaws of our current educational system, the makers of Most Likely to Succeed go in search of a new model for teaching, an alternative to memorizing facts and to regurgitate them on tests. To go even further, a school alternative that more closely matches up to tasks that students will have to be able to complete in their future jobs.

A large portion of the film is then spent profiling a select group of students at a High Tech High, which teaches primarily by having the students do independent projects in groups, or project based learning….

Read More »

Fear of Failure in Education – Most Likely to Succeed Part 5/11

This post may contain text and image affiliate links. You pay the same price, but I may receive a small commissions for purchases through those links.

by

Most Likely to Succeed - Fear of failure - Schools are as much afraid of failing the test as students are, in spite of it not being a guarantee of success.

Most Likely to Succeed – Fear of failure – Schools are as much afraid of failing the test as students are, in spite of it not being a guarantee of success.

In my last post, I talked about how the documentary Most Likely to Succeed showed that the history of education led us to the practice of students memorizing enormous amounts of material.

Most Likely to Succeed uses AP history as an example of a course that requires memorizing an overwhelming number of facts. The way they described it matches up exactly with what my kids have experienced first hand. They are learning loads of facts, and they aren’t retaining it. I think both the book and the documentary cite an example of a school who gave a repeat AP history test to their students a few months after they finished the course. …

Read More »