How Not to Create an Expert

                                                                                                                                By Frank Smith

 

Acknowledgement

                                          

In the name of Allah the most beneficial and merciful. We would thankful to Allah who give us strength and making us capable to do this activity and We also very thankful to our teacher who provide us this opportunity that polish our skills.

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·         R-bbits are  not  indigenous to education

The r-bbit was selected by the demonstrator, who presumably knew from experience how to appeal to teachers and school administrators. The r-bbit was just part of one instructional task. All of the major educational publishers today -- and many manufacturers of computer systems and of the "software" that determines what computers do - produce instructional software in glossily packaged sets. These  packages may include scores of computer drills and supporting materials and cost $2,000 or more per child. But the packages claim to provide everything a child requires during years of schooling to learn to read and to write, to learn math, history, geography, science, and any other subject. They can look like bargains. There are over 10,000 educational software programs on the market today. " Millions of r-bbits can be found in the workbooks, activity sheets, and computerized lessons that claim to teach the facts and skills of language, arithmetic, science, social studies, art, and every other subject under the academic sun. Fill-in-the-blank (or indicate the right one-word answer, which is the same thing) is by far the most common form of instruction in schools today. The theory behind the r-bbit and behind all of its short-right- answer relations is that if learners are presented with one item after another and tested to ensure that each item is learned before they on move on to the next step, then sufficient learning will accumulate to teach a skill. In professional literature of educational psychology, the technique of the       r-bbit is known as "teach and test." More bluntly, program developers themselves often refer to the system as "drill and test." To teachers who have become aware of its consequences, the method is known as "drill and kill."

Advantages : 

·         Good for reinforcement and drilling.

·         Providing good teaching material.

·         Easily available in the market and accessible for every institution.   .

·         Time saving .

·         Parents can use these material for de-schooling or use for more practice at home.

·         Its good for reading and writing practice.

·         It is found in the workbooks, activity sheets, and computerized lessons.

·         Easy to teach the facts and skills of language, arithmetic, science, social studies, art, and every other subject.

·         The technique of the r-bbit is known as "teach and test."

·         Teachers centered learning.

·         The r-bbit is attractive to administrators because it so generously provides scores, which can be used to support any decision and justify any action.

Disadvantages:

·         The method is known as "drill and kill."

·         More emphasis on teaching method rather than learning point of view.

·         Un affordable and out of range for common person .

·         Selected by administrator not from parents.

·         Un experiential learning and subject centered learning.

·         The entire approach has an authority that is difficult to resist.

·         Uncertain or lazy teachers who cannot think of more productive ways of using computers will open the classroom doors to the programs.

·         Like shutting infants up in a dark room and allowing them to see only one thing at a time. The r-bbit is dangerous.

·         Children Learn What Makes Sense to Them

Children may temporarily be wrong in some of their ideas about what written language does and about how it works. They learn by testing their own hypotheses about language, making sense of it in their own terms. Preschool children's ideas about literacy are never nonsensical. The ideas always make sense, to the child at least; the ideas are always reasonable possibilities. It is not until they get to school that children ever get the idea that reading and writing might not make sense. And it is not until they get to school that they are confronted with examples of written language and with reading and writing activities that are sheer nonsense. Before children get to school their natural tendency is to ignore nonsense. How can you learn from something you do not understand? At school they are often tested to find out what confuses them, and the instruction then concentrates upon that.

Children learn what makes sense to them; they learn through the sense of things they want to

understand. Television guides make sense, and so do telephone directories, catalogs, greetings cards, and notes on the refrigerator door -- if you are among people who use those kinds of things. Stories make sense. Before learning to write children must first solve the problem of finding out what written language is for, what it does. Without this insight, no reading or writing instruction will ever make sense. Children solve the problem by making sense of the way people around them use written language. Teachers have to ensure that children are in

meaningful situations where they want to learn what we want to teach them.

Good teachers demonstrate learning. But this is not what most teachers are taught to do. They are trained to administer programs and tests rather than to engage in collaborative learning. 

Advantages:

Children learn what they understand at their own mind set..

Their creativity , imagination and learning increased hen they  involve in the scenarios.

Its make them able to think beyond the picture that helps them in future.

Their evaluation and analyses  and decision power is developed.

They become master in reading and writing.

Teacher play an active part in classroom and provide them actual fact and information.

Disadvantages:

No rote learning is take place.

 Some times students become over confident and behave like an experts.

Teacher is been criticized by students.

No nonsense or mistakes are excepted.

·         Youngsters and adults cannot learn if information is pressed into the brain

There are three types are learners

·         Visual learners

·         Audio learners

·         Kinesthetic learners

We may do not understand from which learning style our students learning take place like if I talk about myself I am visual learner. So we cannot pore the knowledge in anyone brain but good teachers respond instinctively. Schools should be learning emporia, places where people congregate to learn, and no one should be there if they do not want to participate in learning--whether their role is to be a student, a teacher, or an administrator. I know that most children are required to attend a school of one kind or another, but children who don't want to learn what we try to teach them will not learn, and "staff" who do not display learning will not teach children anything worthwhile. Teachers were once dedicated learners themselves, and they would be more effective if they were free. There is no shortage of good examples to follow to the way in which children - and adults-learn, without direction from outside authorities. Good teachers never rely on  tests, and they resist external control when it is thrust upon them. teachers I that they are interested in what they teach and they enjoy working with learners. Indeed, they are learners themselves.

Advantages:

Experiential learning is take place.

Learning is enjoyable, interesting and long lasting.

Learning can be categories on the ability of learner.

Collaborative learning takes place.

People understand each other needs and also society needs.

Learning with interest take place for any age.

Schools  become learning emporia,

Disadvantages:

Create conflicts or biased in learning groups.

No one should be there if they do not want to participate in learning.

Emphasis on rote learning and memorization.

·         The fact that psychology’s “ laws of learning” are wholly based on nonsense is generally ignored. It is difficult to study meaningful learning under laboratory condition, and precise predictions about experimental result with meaningful tasks are usually impossible.

The base of education is wrong and we are still not follow the structural teaching method that depends on these steps.

1.      Reading  and writing is segmented into separate skills which are arranged hierarchically according to difficulty.

2.      Teachers engage in a teach/test/re-teach/ retest Cycle.

3.       Students are given unlimited time to learn one skill before progressing to the next skill in

the hierarchy," as outlined by Benjamin Bloom. "With the recent popularity of 'direct instruction' and the 'back to basics' movement.

Research showing that because even the slowest students in the class must become

"master" of reading and writing within established time limits, and  goals are set at a minimal level and are restricted to easily definable and testable skills.

"The Tests of Basic Skills are designed to enable a teacher to know whether each one of his or her pupils has learned what it is that has been taught at each level through the use of the  teaching materials which compose the reading and writing instructions.

Advantages:

Step by step learning is take place;

More emphasis on reading and writing.

Teacher can use different strategies for teaching.

Using the techniques of teach, test, re-teach and re-test.

Master of learning is take place.

Every students has right to learn at his/her own time period..

Work on back to basic movement.

Disadvantages:

Wastage of time and  resources or time consuming.

De-schooling or non graded school concept is developed.

Parents may argue on test or retest technique.

·         There are good learners and poor learners, and in favor of the notion that there are faster learners and slower learners. Blooms has also pointed out that individual differences are not so much between learners, as people as between what is learned.

Children learn from the artifacts they find in their environment and from the behavior of the people around them. Where do children learn that reading and writing are boring and difficult, that learning is tedious, that they are themselves dullards, that collaboration is cheating, and that nothing at school is worth doing without a score? Instead of thinking that the failings of students reflect what they have not learned, we should regard these failings as what they have been taught. We underrate our brains and our intelligence. Formal education has become such a complicated, self conscious and overregulated activity that learning is widely regarded as something difficult that the brain would rather not do. Teachers are often inclined to think that learning is an occasional event, requiring special incentives and rewards, not something that anyone would normally engage in given a choice. A simple cause of many failures to learn is trying to learn something that doesn't make sense. We can't memorize anything from a book that confuses us. What is there to memorize, except the confusion? We can' that we can't learn, but that we can't make sense of what we want to learn.

Advantages:

Changing the perception about learning  that is boring and difficult for many peoples.

Its necessary what have been taught to student without  given any nonsense practice.

Working on Bloom’s theory that reflect the feeling of learner.

Teachers perception has to change about rote learning or students low performance..

Conclusion:

  The article focuses particularly on children learning to read and write, the area in which Frank Smith has made his reputation. But this six point manifesto on learning and teaching is applicable at every level of education and in the context of the ongoing struggle to upgrade the teaching profession.

Everyday, students of all ages are being drilled tested, and graded on isolated bits of knowledge. The practice has become so prevalent in classrooms and textbooks in the last 30 years that many students equate it with education itself. Everyday the intelligence of students and teachers is being insulted.

Common sense says that drilling, testing, and grading have nothing to do with how babies, children and adults really learn.

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