Fires in the Mind E-Book

Kathleen Cushman

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 244

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Teens talk to adults about how they develop motivation and mastery Through the voices of students themselves, Fires in the Mind brings a game-changing question to teachers of adolescents: What does it take to get really good at something? Starting with what they already know and do well, teenagers from widely diverse backgrounds join a cutting-edge dialogue with adults about the development of mastery in and out of school. Their insights frame motivation, practice, and academic challenge in a new light that galvanizes more powerful learning for all. To put these students' ideas into practice, the book also includes practical tips for educators. * Breaks new ground by bringing youth voices to a timely topic-motivation and mastery * Includes worksheets, tips, and discussion guides that help put the book's ideas into practice * Author has 18 previous books on adolescent learning and has written for the New York Times Magazine, Educational Leadership, and American Educator From the acclaimed author of Fires in the Bathroom, this is the next-step book that pushes the conversation to next level, as teenagers tackle the pressing challenges of motivation and mastery.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword

CHAPTER ONE - What Does It Take to Get Good?

THE PRACTICE PROJECT

STARTING OUT AND KEEPING GOING

LEARNING FROM EXPERTS

TAKING PRACTICE TO SCHOOL

TEN THOUSAND HOURS

CHAPTER TWO - Catching the Spark

GENERATIONS PASSING SKILLS DOWN

FUN , COMPANIONSHIP, CHALLENGE

TRYING IT OUT AT SCHOOL

A PLACE IN THE COMMUNITY

A PRIVATE WORLD BECKONS

JUST BECAUSE IT MATTERS

CHAPTER THREE - Keeping at It

IT’ S WORTH THE TROUBLE

WATCHING THE BEST

TO PROVE YOU CAN

MASTERY LOVES COMPANY

COMPETING WITH RIVALS

RECOGNITION BY A COMMUNITY

ENCOURAGEMENT EQUALS EXPECTATION

BUILDING ON BELIEF

CHALLENGE CREATES MORE CHALLENGE

CHAPTER FOUR - Asking the Experts

WHO ’ S AN EXPERT?

WHERE DO EXPERTS GET THEIR KNOWLEDGE?

THE HABITS THAT EXPERTS USE

WHY ASK THE EXPERTS?

CHAPTER FIVE - Exploring Deliberate Practice

ELEMENTS OF DELIBERATE PRACTICE

TAKING PRACTICE FORWARD

CHAPTER SIX - Practice and Performance

PERFORMING BEFORE AN AUDIENCE

APPLYING MASTERY ON THE JOB

PERFORMING FOR ONESELF

EXPERIENCING FLOW

CHAPTER SEVEN - Bringing Practice into the Classroom

GETTING STARTED

COACHING US THROUGH DELIBERATE PRACTICE

GIVE US AN AUDIENCE

PLANNING FOR PRACTICE IN CLASS

CHAPTER EIGHT - Is Homework Deliberate Practice?

WHAT’S THE HOMEWORK FOR?

NO FOLLOW - UP , NO GAIN

WHEN HOMEWORK ISN’T FAIR

SO MUCH HOMEWORK , SO LITTLE TIME

THE FOUR R’S OF HOMEWORK AS PRACTICE

HOMEWORK WE ACTUALLY WANT TO DO

CHAPTER NINE - School Projects That Build Expert Habits

PROJECTS START WITH VALUE AND MEANING

TEAM PROJECTS AS A SCAFFOLD FOR EXPERT HABITS

TEAMWORK REQUIRES DELIBERATE PRACTICE

BUILDING KNOWLEDGE AS A TEAM

CREATING NEW WORK TOGETHER

THE ROLE OF PERFORMANCE IN STUDENT PROJECTS

SAMPLE PROJECTS TO INSPIRE PRACTICE

CHAPTER TEN - Making School a Community of Practice

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

The Student Contributors

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About What Kids Can Do

Index

PRAISE FOR KATHLEEN CUSHMAN’S BOOKS WITH STUDENTS

When kids are finally given a voice, it’s always amazing to me how on target their perceptions of schools are!—Bob Mackin, Director, America’s Choice High Schools

Fires in the Bathroom tells it like it is. . . . All educators should read this book. Parents too. There is much wisdom here.—Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University

Wonderful and painful to read. . . . Fires in the Bathroom gives me so many ideas about what we could do differently tomorrow.—Deborah Meier, author, The Power of Their Ideas

The minds of students seem so mysterious to most adults.Fires in the Middle School Bathroom lets the students tell their own stories in their own voices. The book sheds welcome new light on what middle school students really care about and how they experience their days in school.—William Damon, Director, Stanford Center on Adolescence

Sent to the Principalshould be read by every high school principal in the country. The book eloquently uses the words of students in a powerful way that no one can ignore. It will provide tremendous grist for the important conversations that need to take place to transform our high schools.—Joseph DiMartino, Education Alliance, Brown University

Through the ears, eyes, voices, tastes, and hands of students, Sent to the Principal gives us student insights that are frank, honest, simply delivered, and valuable for changing schools.—Elliot Washor, Ed.D., Co-director, Big Picture Company

I couldn’t put this book down.Sent to the Principal gently leads the school leader to change his or her personal style of leading, but also encourages institutionalized responses.—Robert McCarthy, thirty-year principal and mentor, Colorado Small Schools Initiative

Parents, teachers, and just plain adults would do well to listen to the young men and women in What We Can’t Tell You, if the creation of a truly humane society is still our goal.—Thomas J. Cottle, author of Mind Fields: Adolescent Consciousness in a Culture of Distraction, professor of education, Boston University

Copyright © 2010 by What Kids Can Do, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-0-470-64603-8

This book is dedicatedto all the students waiting to catch fireand all the teacherswho notice and cherish the sparks

Foreword

A SKING STUDENTS TO TALK ABOUT their education is so simple that—whether we are teachers, parents, researchers, or policymakers—we inevitably forget to do it. Yet when we do invite them to the table with adults, the youth in our classrooms and communities will shed surprising new light on our most intransigent educational dilemmas. What makes young people catch fire, work hard, and persist despite difficulties? What supports and structures do they need in order to thrive and contribute, in both school and society?

Those are the questions that this book addresses, and for over a quarter-century at MetLife and MetLife Foundation, we have put the same questions at the center of our work with education. The Metlife Survey of the American Teacher—which each year gathers the views of a broad and representative sample of those closest to the classroom—teachers, principals, parents, students—consistently highlights the beliefs, practices, and experiences of young people as well as their teachers. As Fires in the Mind goes to press, MetLife is just releasing our twenty-sixth such report, based on our 2009 survey and titled “Collaborating for Student Success.” Its findings go to the heart of the issues raised here by the students of What Kids Can Do.

Merely asking young people about their learning will not by itself foster their ambitious goals and high expectations, their motivation and mastery. We need also to listen closely, and to collaborate with youth on analyzing the disparities between their experiences and what their elders report.

Four out of five teachers and principals in our 2009 survey told us that they believe connecting classroom instruction to the real world would have a major impact on student achievement. They also held that addressing the individual needs of diverse students is necessary to student success. A school culture where students feel responsible and accountable for their own education, they said, would greatly affect student achievement.

In that same survey, however, a majority of students reported that their teachers very rarely—or never—speak to them personally about things that matter to the students. Over a quarter of secondary school students said their teachers do not connect the school curriculum to its applications in the outside world. And only one in four students felt strongly that school let them use their abilities and their creativity.

What should we conclude from such disparate perspectives? In Fires in the Mind, What Kids Can Do asks us to join young people in investigating the answers. Students here recount the conditions that ignite their curiosity and inspire them to strive for excellence, in very different contexts including school, home, and community. They point out which practices successfully coach them through the necessary hardships of learning, and which sap their desire to keep up the struggle. They interview adults who have attained mastery in their fields, and analyze the habits that got them to that point. They consider the cognitive research about developing expertise, and then they look at various school experiences, such as homework, through that lens.

The students’ voices in this book start a vital conversation about “what it takes to get really good at something.” For all our young people to develop to their full potential, that conversation must now continue among adults and youth in our schools, homes, and communities. I urge each reader to contribute your perspective, your voice, and the rich details of your experiences to the dialogue ahead. As we construct a common understanding among youth and adults, we will also be developing mastery for the future we are shaping every day.

Dennis White President and CEO, MetLife Foundation

CHAPTER ONE

What Does It Take to Get Good?

IN A BIG PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL on the west side of Chicago, a ninth-grade boy named Joshua is describing the thing he does best in life. We sit in his reading and writing classroom, twenty-eight students in a circle, me with an audio recorder. “I’m real good at architecture,” Joshua says matter-of-factly.

WHAT KIDS TELL US

Everything takes practice. It’s not like one day you can just get up and say, “I’m going to do something.” You got to practice at it.