Purposeful Ramblings Through My Mind

I'm not sure "easier" would be the right word for what I'd like. I would like to teach less actual information and more skills in the primary grades, to give students a better background to absorb the information later. I don't even want to take out the two extra strands of science I mentioned. Weather is done three times between grades one and seven. Why not scale that back to two, and do a better job of it those two times? I want to make it possible to create longer, more meaningful and more engaging units that focus on skill development rather than information, and that are geared to the level the kids are at (because, though I don't have the research at my fingertips, the bit about abstract vs. concrete thinking is about as close to fact as anything ever gets in psychology.) Currently, teaching information is valued as highly as teaching skills, right from the beginning. That's wrong-headed. Kids need to learn how to learn - how to read, write, figure, and problem-solve. If they learn those things in the primary and junior grades, then the gradual shift from skills-based to information-based learning will work for them. The reason kids are failing in droves at the moment is because we've overvalued information, assuming the kids will pick up the skills as they go along. It doesn't work that way, or at least, not for most kids.

Keep in mind also that for you, the system worked. Much of what you saw as a student would have been successful learning, because you were a successful student. For the kids like you, this curriculum is working fairly well. It's the other eighty percent of the population that I'm worried about.