Ideas within topic education,teachers,primary: (click suns to rate or comment on ideas)
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| Teach estimation for real-life: Fermi quiz (power of 10 estimates), budgets, taxes, should I buy insurance, how likely are coincidences, how much food to make for a meal. (math,probability,statistics) | |
| 2 |
| Teach practical history. Don't memorize dates. Generalize how people behave in similar events around the world over time: culture clashes, democracy movements vs. dictators, economic booms/busts, ethnic wars, development. Apply to future. | |
| 3 |
| Teach practical behavior: top reasons people divorce or stay married, or have children. Causes of spouse abuse & child abuse. Parent/teen relations. Recognizing and treating psychiatric illness. | |
| 4 |
| To improve health, teach preventative measures at school: good fitness, sensible eating, weight control, non-smoking, moderate drinking, etc. Less visits to doctor = lower overall costs. | |
| 5 |
| To raise money needed by charities (such as schools) for specific needs, set up a website to allow recipients to post proposals and allow donors to choose which they will fund. DonorsChoose is an example. | |
| 6 |
| Why are school buildings reminiscent of Gothic, Medieval, and Prison architecture? If you want kids to be bright and creative, let them learn and develop in unique and colorful buildings that combine technology with nature. Hire some new architects. | |
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| To prevent further damage to our Earth, I think that we need to have education in our schools that teaches the consequences that our actions have on the Earth. | |
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| Idea contest for kids in school. Teachers may divide kids into teams to brainstorm and compete against other teams for greatest number of ideas or best ideas (as judged by other students). | |
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| Teach basic science facts: light things fall as fast as heavy ones (besides drag), drugs short-circuit pleasure circuits in brain, suntan is from nuclear radiation, a liter of water is a kilo, a liter of any gas has ~same # of molecules. (chemistry) | |
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| To deal with school bullying: show confidence, stay in groups, avoid the bully, and ignore the bully (this is hard, so have friends or parents help you practice at home). If that doesn't work, tell teachers and parents and take self-defense lessons. | |
| 11 |
| Teach geography: rough locations of biggest 100 countries, big religions, big languages, income by region, lifespan by region, government (democracy, dictatorship, theocracy, anarchy) by country, cities over 5 million. Not state capitals. | |
| 12 |
| A course in personal typing is required in many schools in U.S. Should be required for all. Course should also include Word Processing, Spread Sheets, "Power Point" presentations, and basic Internet searching. | |
| 13 |
| Have a "prosthetic leg" day at your school. Have everybody bring in a dollar that goes towards buying a prosthetic leg for a child to walk again in Vietnam (through thechildhealthsite.com). $100 will buy a leg. | |
| 14 |
| Teach children in school that if they ever need to quickly leave a crowded place, due to a fire for example, they should walk calmly and not push, otherwise a stampede would create a jam from which few would escape. Practice it several times. | |
| 15 |
| Internet Scavenger Hunt: a fun, educational game for a group of kids or adults to test ingenuity and resourcefulness. Race to find a list of things on the net, such as a photo of a certain object, a certain fact, a particular piece of music. | |
| 16 |
| Do zero-based budgeting of education time. Decide what's worth teaching based on criteria of usefulness for job, health, marriage, finances, voting, etc. This might replace geometry & history w/home & car repair, & practical child behavior. | |
| 17 |
| Real life Simon Says with musical tones. Students of music (beginning to advanced) can play a pattern for others to match. | |
| 18 |
| Teach languages in primary, not secondary, school, since it's easier to learn young. Teach common, not traditional, languages: more Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Hindi, Mandarin, Portuguese; less German, Italian; no Latin. | |
| 19 |
| Super soccer: Improve fun and exercise in soccer (football) by using more than one ball so that players can spend more of their time in play and less just waiting for the ball. You may also increase team sizes. | |
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| In a large group of friends or co-workers it is impractical to have a party for each person's birthday. Instead, have one party or meal each month to celebrate everyone who has a birthday that month. | |
| 21 |
| To remember nine planets of our solar system in right order just memorise this sentence: "My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets." The first letter of each word stands for respective planet. | |
| 22 |
| Teach less local national history, more world history. | |
| 23 |
| To allow teacher to display computer screen output to the TV screen, use the adaptor that is available to link computer to television. | |
| 24 |
| Provide students all over the world with a book or method to record answers to a real world given problem. | |
| 25 |
| To teach cell stucture, use a water sachet pocket model with a black marble as nucleus and with other organelle models in it. Children will understand better. Ribbons can be used as DNA model helices. | |
| 26 |
| Provide educational supplementary materials for homeschoolers, at-risk children, children with learning disabilities, early childhood learning, high school dropouts and children residing in homeless shelters who are economically disadvantaged. | |
| 27 |
| K-12 teachers who use grading computer programs always enter grades in gradebook by hand and then on computer. I have some ideas, but please send me yours, on this topic or others related to "teacher automation". | |
| 28 |
| A new size and shape of Sudoku puzzle. Something different that Sudoku Gurus will have to think about. And have a cool mascot to help you learn how to solve the puzzles. | |
| 29 |
| Dodge ball: Teams stay in opposite halves of a basketball court and try to hit an opponent with a volleyball to eliminate him. But if he catches the ball, the thrower is out. Eliminated players throw from the court end opposite their team. | |
| 30 |
| Teach foreign language with video of actors using exaggerated or funny expressions or actions demonstrating words. This will give words a strong visual association to aid memorization. | |
| 31 |
| Funix is an innovative breakthrough for learning a foreign language mnemonically. You already know how to speak Spanish, Chinese or whatever language because it's just rearranged English. www.funixbook.com | |
| 32 |
| Teach sign language to grade 6 students to keep noise level in the classroom to a minimum. | |
| 33 |
| Why is the Montessori method never adopted in public education? It has 100% success in both maths and reading/writing and was produced to teach those subnormal mentally to read and write. | |
| 34 |
| In teaching history and literature, don't start with a survey and then specialize. Do the reverse! Start by looking deeply into one point with personal relevance to the student. Then curiosity takes hold and the student is motivated to make connections. | |
| 35 |
| After millenia of civilization, jealousy, hate, and greed (causes of today's crimes) still exist. Try treating everyone equally and letting one's intentions and actions hold one's value instead of one's current funds. | |
| 36 |
| To reduce the heavy load young school children carry, instead of bringing notebooks for each subject, bring papers which will not tear easily. This paper can be arranged in 3-ring binders divided by subject. | |
| 37 |
| What, in a broad and unfocused sense, does education lack at every level? A global brainstorm, going for quantity of lines to get quality at the end. | |
| 38 |
| Keep boys and girls in two different classrooms from grade 5 (age 11) and up. We did that last year at my school and it helped improve marks, especially with maths. They can always play together at recess or as part of special assessments. | |