Many of you shun rote learning and any sort of memorization in favor of more inductive, process-based learning; yet you scratch your heads in disbelief when your students aren't as quick and sharp as you remember yourselves being at their age.
(If you've read any of my previous postings, no doubt you can see where this is going) (:
To my mind, it's nothing short of flabbergasting that so few of you realize what's missing.
Boomers, when you were 6,7,8,9 years old in the 1950s, rote learning was the norm. Was it boring, did it feel meaningless, did you resent being forced to memorize material? Yes...but that came later. You didn't feel that then.
Of course it wasn't exactly fun to memorize the state capitols, the multiplication table, science facts, etc. But by doing so, many of you built confidence in yourselves as learners. You developed the ability to recall information. You knew stuff. And, most importantly, when it came time to apply this knowledge, you were prepared. In fact, so many of you were so prepared that you quickly developed into critical thinkers---critical thinkers who then, rightly, questioned the validity of curricula based primarily on rote learning and memorization!
To put it another, much simpler way, there are lots of folks out here in classrooms today getting hit with faces full of bath water!
The secret to instilling confidence, motivation, curiosity and good study habits in kids kindergarten through 5th grade is to give them what the Baby Boomers got: a well-developed foundation of knowledge on which to build critical thinking skills. The Boomers and their protege are so committed to developing higher-order thinking that they race our children there before they are ready. They would do well to revisit their old buddy Benjamin Bloom and the cognitive domain of Bloom's taxonomy.
NEXT: How to make 'em bloom...
