Ed Reform 2.0: If You Can Train a Pigeon to Detonate Bombs…

The video is scary:

Emily Talmage Blog

Back in 1977, Superintendent James Guines of Washington D.C. explained his district’s competency-based education pilot program like this:

“The basic idea is to break down complicated learning into a sequence of clear simple skills that virtually everyone can master, although at different rates of speed.If you can train a pigeon to fly up there and press a button and set off a bomb, why can’t you teach human beings to behave in an effective and rational way?”

“We know we can modify human behavior. We’re not scared of that,” he added. “This is the biggest thing that’s happening in education today.”

HA! Those crazy 70’s! Boy did they have some crazy ideas back then.

But wait…

Now check out this recent video from Angela Duckworth and Katherine Milkman:

Here’s what Milkman has to say:

“If you repeatedly reward good behavior, and pair it with memorable cues, positive routines become…

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Scary, and not just mathematically speaking …

Try this for size:

https://mystudentvoices.com/how-old-is-the-shepherd-the-problem-that-shook-school-mathematics-ad89b565fff#.a7llwy3mv

The greatest myth about math education ?

I have to go along with this.

You can get the conclusion, but the rest is quite compelling.

“In conclusion, it would be wonderful to be able to get all students competent in Excel and arithmetic, and a little bit of algebra, statistics and programming. Higher mathematics should be offered and taken by those who need it, or want it; but never required of all students.”

David Edwards teaches math in the Department of Mathematics at the
University of Georgia.

https://fee.org/articles/the-greatest-myth-about-math-education/?utm_medium=popular_widget

The article is from the “Foundation for Economic Education”