AERO E-news 11.01.2010

Two DVDs at Excellent Prices: Alfie Kohn & Free to Learn from AERO http://www.educationrevolution.org/ e-news 11.06.2010

 Free to Learn: A Radical Experiment in Education
A Documentary by Jeff Root & Bhawin Suchak

Free to Learn is a 70 minute documentary that offers a “fly on the wall” perspective of the daily happenings at The Free School in Albany, New York. Like many of today’s radical and democratic schools, The Free School expects children to decide for themselves how to spend their days.

The Free School, however, is unique in that it transcends obstacles that prevent similar schools from reaching a economically and racially diverse range of students and operates in the heart of an inner-city neighborhood.

For over thirty years in perhaps the most radical experiment in American education, this small inner-city alternative school has offered its students complete freedom over their learning. There are no mandatory classes, no grades, tests, or homework, and rules are generally avoided. As a last resort, rules are created democratically by students and teachers, often at the prompting of a student. At a time when our educators are mandated to march forward with no child left behind, the students of the Free School, many of whom would have fallen through the cracks of today’s failing public school system, have managed to slip out of education’s back door and have run away free.

Free to Learn follows a handful of these children courageously meeting the daily challenges of hope, acceptance, loss, friendship, conflict, and the difficult task of deciding, for themselves, what to do with each day.

List: $18, Sale $13.45, Member $12.10

http://www.educationrevolution.org/freetolearn.html

 No Grades + No Homework = Better Learning: Two Lectures
by Alfie Kohn

In a pair of lively and thought-provoking presentations, Alfie Kohn makes a compelling case that two traditional features of schooling – grades and homework – are not only unnecessary but actually undermine students’ interest in learning.

Research consistently finds that giving students letter or number grades leads them to think less deeply, avoid challenging tasks, and become less enthusiastic about whatever they’re learning – and that’s true for those who get A’s as well as D’s. Similarly, making children work what amounts to a second shift after having spent all day in school not only proves frustrating but also turns learning into a chore. Surprisingly, claims that homework enhances understanding or promotes better work habits are contradicted by both research and experience.

RaRather than trying to tweak the details of how students are graded, or how much (or even what kind of) homework they’re assigned, Kohn argues that we need to ask whether the practices themselves really make sense.

 List: $29.95, Sale $24.95, Member $22.45

http://www.educationrevolution.org/nogrades.html