Tim, Over Tired: Our Bones Are Wet

Tim, over tired: our bones are wet

Bruce, terrified: Why would you say that?

Tim, staring into the void: because they go slush slush—

Bruce: TIM STOP

I’m so upset rn, and making memes is better than crying

Working with modeling clay is the best because everything I do looks like shit and it’s the most fun I’ve had in months.

Yes they look like they’ll eat you in your sleep but look at them!!!

Nothing on this earth makes me happier

This is why it’s so hard.

To every day: pull myself out of bed and go to school. To

To every year: go through finals season

Every single class I don’t care about, every single heartbreaking day I am forced to live through science classes I’ll never use, every single math class that could’ve been a half year, but is instead 3.

I have failing grades in all my classes because I can’t suffer through getting good grades in 2.

And if I fail 2 classes I’ve failed all of school, so why bother?

A Twitter Thread from David Bowles:

[Text transcript at the end of the screenshots]

I'll let you in on a secret. I have a doctorate in education, but the field’s basically just a 100 years old. We don’t really know what we’re doing. Our scholarly understanding of how learning happens is like astronomy 2000 years ago.

Most classroom practice is astrology.

Before the late 19th century, no human society had ever attempted to formally educate the entire populace. It was either aristocracy, meritocracy, or a blend. And always male.

We’re still smack-dab in the middle of the largest experiment on children ever done.

Most teachers perpetuate the “banking” model (Freire) used on them by their teachers, who likewise inherited it from theirs, etc.

Thus the elite “Lyceum” style of instruction continues even though it’s ineffectual with most kids.

What’s worse, the key strategies we’ve discovered, driven by cognitive science & child psychology, are quite regularly dismissed by pencil-pushing, test-driven administrators. Much like Trump ignores science, the majority of principals & superintendents I’ve known flout research.

Some definitions:

Banking model --> kids are like piggy banks: empty till you fill them with knowledge that you're the expert in.

Lyceum --> originally Aristotle's school, where the sons of land-owning citizens learned through lectures and research.

Things we (scholars) DO know:

-Homework doesn't really help, especially younger kids.

-Students don't learn a thing from testing. Most teachers don't either (it's supposed to help them tweak instruction, but that rarely happens).

-Spending too much time on weak subjects HURTS.

Do you want kids to learn? Here's something we've discovered: kids learn things that matter to them, either because the knowledge and skills are "cool," or because .... they give the kids tools to liberate themselves and their communities.

Maintaining the status quo? Nope.

Kids are acutely aware of injustice and by nature rebellious against the systems of authority that keep autonomy away from them.

If you're perpetuating those systems, teachers, you've already freaking lost.

They won't be learning much from you. Except what not to become. Sure, you can wear them down. That's what happened to most of you, isn't it? You saw the hideous flaw in the world and wanted to heal it. But year after numbing year, they made you learn their dogma by rote.

And now many of you are breaking the souls of children, too.

For what?

It's all smoke and mirrors. All the carefully crafted objectives, units and exams.

WE. DON'T. KNOW. HOW. PEOPLE. LEARN.

We barely understand the physical mechanisms behind MEMORY. But we DO know kids aren't empty piggy banks. They are BRIMMING with thought.

The last and most disgusting reality? The thing I hear in classroom after freaking classroom?

Education is all about capitalism.

"You need to learn these skills to get a good job." To be a good laborer. To help the wealthy generate more wealth, while you get scraps.

THAT is why modern education is a failure.

Its basic premise is monstrous.

"Why should I learn to read, Dr. Bowles?"

Because reading is magical. It makes life worth living. And being able to read, you can decode the strategies of your oppressors & stop them w/ their own words.

I like how from the outside, Charles and Edwin are unambiguously equal partners in the Agency, but if you dig into their psyches pretty much at all, you realize that there's a distinct possibility Charles thinks of himself as the Watson to Edwin's Holmes, the friend and follower of the brilliant detective, the guy who brings along a handy weapon - and meanwhile Edwin thinks of himself as the Merlin to Charles's Arthur, advisor and magician of the bravest and noblest of heroes.

Tim: What kind of tea is this?

Dick: Oh, I just boiled some gatorade.