TED+Talk+4

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There is a lot in this video - days and weeks could be spent discussing what is touched on in this animation/lecture. I think the main point that our speaker is trying to get to is that our current educational system is not working - and for many varied reasons. The cause of all of these reasons being that the education system in the United States was designed for a different time and economic situation. The thing that struck me the most was the "industrial approach" that he showed that students followed - the grouping by "date of manufacture" and passing the students through grade by grade until they reached the end and were suddenly declared educated. I know myself (and most other teachers) focus so much on what the individual student needs, that we don't even recognize that the system is working against us. In Atkinson Elementary, there are some classrooms that have several grade levels (one is a k-1-2 class, the other a 3-4) but we're limited in how we can group because of the standardized testing. It would be difficult to group students who are in 4th grade and 5th grade together because the 4th graders really need to focus on science and the 5th graders really need to focus on social studies for the state tests. Standardized testing can really limit our ability to be flexible - which is another point he made during this talk. All of this is really something to think about as a teacher and decide how you can personalize your classroom for each student.