Re: Livening Up Today's Lesson

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

Elsa,

Thanks!  Unfortunately, after I had sent that version, I noticed that 
the Times has a 150 word limit.  So, I sent this shorter, weaker 
version as a back-up.

Pete

Re: "Livening Up Today's Lesson, Courtesy of Uncle Sam," NY Times, 
August 7, 2006, p. A4:

            The  description of the student-centered, active 
teaching methods promoted by the US in Indonesian schools highlights 
a bitter irony for many American educators.  It is heartening to know 
that the federal government pays to train teachers in Indonesia to 
use relevant curricula to build students' thinking skills.  Such 
pedagogy, known as "constructivism," has been effective for low 
income minority children since the 1970s.
            But teachers in most American schools are prevented from 
using this constructivist pedagogy, due to the takeover of public 
education by the high-stakes testing juggernaut of the 1990s and the 
No Child Left Behind law of 2001.  The testocrats have turned most 
public schools into anti-intellectualist "test-prep" factories that 
emphasize didactic lessons and low level memorization.
            I hope your article encourages readers to think about 
the hypocrisy of US education, and to act to change things so that 
American schoolchildren may benefit, like Indonesian students, from 
state of the art pedagogy.





At 04:48 PM 8/8/2006, you wrote:
> Peter,
>
> I certainly hope your letter gets published. Thanks for writing it. 
> I had similar thoughts when I read the article.
>
> Elsa 
> Haas