Sunday, June 23, 2013

Place-Based Education.......wassat?

'Place-based is the belief that teaching happens most effectively through use of the local culture, politics, art, environment, economy, geography etc.... creating a concrete context in which students can build connections to the content being taught.'      Nature and Children.

My, sounds like a return to the best of 1960s UK practice in schools in UK. 

'Nature Study', 'Using Nature', 'Environmental Studies', 'Field Studies', 'Environmental Education', and now 'Place Based Education'...................

It's time I weighed in on this.......particularly as my whole teacher career, with children and adults, has focused on arousing curiosity.......through story-telling, collecting, displaying and sharing nature's artifacts, and taking all-ages on environmental walks and searches.

Anyone read YESTERDAY I FOUND....by John and Dorothy Paull, 1971, an account of how one teacher very effectively used the wild and man-made environment to engage and motivate her kids?

Anyone read THROUGH MY EYES...by John Paull, 2012, a memoir of teaching in the 1960s and 1970s?

Anyone who reads this blog recognize the theme running through most of the postings?    :) Hey, hey....

Funny.................the three school districts I am familiar with have and continue to do their best to discourage Place Based Education. It's left to a small number of Charter and Private Schools to make the most of the power of curiosity-driven classroom activities..........activities that encourage children to think, draw, write, read, and measure.

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