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Thursday, August 11, 2011

We're Not Waiting For Superman



by Seattle Jon (bio)

How we educate has been top of mind ever since I watched the documentary Waiting for Superman a few months ago. Sure, shock-docs like this should always be questioned for accuracy and motive, but at the very least you will walk away from this movie motivated to do more for your own kids or for other kids.

Here is something I started doing with my two oldest at the end of the last school year. When I came across interesting articles online, and I thought the topic would also interest them, I would print the article out and assign it to them to read and summarize. I made sure the assigned articles were challenging enough to contain new words and concepts. If they went the extra mile and looked up the words they didn't know, I paid them a nominal amount of ten cents per word. For example, here are two articles I remember printing out for my ten-year old daughter to read. I think I paid her fifty cents.

The Trouble With Bright Girls, Huffington Post
Changes Schools Should Make to Better Serve Students: A Student's View, Huffington Post

My next idea - a multi-week unit introducing the world's great religions to kick off the school year. Let's all strive to be a little more educationally creative this year.

Wikipedia (Waiting for Superman): here
Kids-In-Mind (content review): here
Pay for Grades (Time Magazine): here
Image via Wikipedia

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