Morality Based Education

Originally, our educational system was first used to develop the moral citizenry of communities across a developing nation. However, in this century, morality based education has taken a back seat to political correctness. Things like “the greater good” and “pride in doing a good job” seem to have disappeared from the minds of our youth. To be honest, I do not blame our educational system for the entire problem. I blame many parents. I feel that parents should create a strong moral foundation in their children and teach them that they should not lie, cheat, or steal. Unfortunately, many children live with parents that are not equipped to provide a strong foundation of basic morality. Because of this, we are raising a nation of youth that are in the “fast lane” of life, only concerned with themselves. Our youth need to understand that morality and personal ethics is not something they do, but it is a part of who they are.

Why it is important to study a child's world?

The reason why it is important to study children and development is so that we can understand how children change as they grow up and understand the forces that contribute to those changes. “The past causes the present, and so the future.” I learned this quote in high school when my history teacher tried to explain to my class why we needed to know U.S. History. The same applies to the history and study of childhood development if we want to make the world better for our children.

According to some educational theorists, the only disadvantages of studying a child’s world occur when developmental scientists arrive at differing conclusions using experiments that are not controlled and replicable. In order to correct this, research needs to be quantitative, qualitative, or both. Scientists need to use random sample selections in order to ensure validity of their research. Additionally, scientists need to be aware and sensitive to the many ethical issues that are involved in research on child development.

The history of early childhood education and development has many facets. The knowledge base includes ideas, content and practice information, and excellent models. The three basic theoretical issues on which developmental scientists differ are the relative importance of heredity and environment, the active or passive character of development, and the existence of stages of development. Childhood is a separate, distinct, unique period in the human lifespan that has intrigued many theorists to explore. Because there are multiple theories on child and adolescent development, no one theory or theorist is unanimously accepted. However, when we understand a child’s world, past and present, we better understand how people and societies act in the present. Research in the study of a child’s world also promotes historical perspective in the making of current educational policy.

Building a Global Leadership Brand, Technology - CNBC.com

Building a Global Leadership Brand, Technology - CNBC.com

This is a great episode of Executive Vision about how top executives in technology guide their companies in a world where innovation is a key to their survival.

Problem Solving – A Teachable Skill

The goal of all instruction is to develop skills, knowledge, and abilities that transfer to tasks that a student can understand. However, we must take care when we teach students "how to think.” We should not teach students "what to think" or "what to do" in every instance because this emphasis is on procedural knowledge and not about problem solving.

Many of today’s textbooks show problem solving as a linear process and present problem solving as a series of steps, which leads to an emphasis on only getting the correct answer. In order to develop good problem solving abilities, students need to experience the frustration and excitement of struggling with and overcoming obstacles while solving a problem. Overcoming these obstacles provides students with the confidence they will need in order to tackle these types of problems that will occur in their journey through life.

Traditional teaching approaches involving rote learning and teacher-centered instruction often do not meet the learning needs of students who may be active learners because instruction is most effective when it is student-centered. When students memorize rules, they may be learning something, but they are not developing a good foundation in a given subject because the student is not seeing how things work or how things are related to each other. The goals of problem solving are to improve the student’s willingness to try problems, provide awareness of strategies, explaining how to approach problems in a systematic way, and demonstrating that problems can be solved in multiple ways.

The best approach to teaching problem solving is to use content related to real-world problem solving experiences because this helps motivate students and sparks their interest in solving real-world problems. By providing this type of framework, educators are able to create opportunities for students to make discoveries that allow them to make concepts more concrete and that will aid them for the rest of their lives.