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Building Better Schools

Commentaries by Abraham S. Fischler

Quotations to Guide

Teachers, Principals,

Parents and Students

IUniverse Press


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Contents

Introduction

Quotations and Commentaries

Excerpts from TheStudentIstheClass.com

Whats Next

Endnote


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Abraham Fischler 3

Introduction


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4 Building Better Schools

Quotations andCommentaries


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Abraham Fischler 5

Commentary: The way that classrooms are organized,

because of the pressures that teachers and students are under

since No Child Left Behind, more and more time is now being

spent helping students learn at a comprehensive level. Little

time is left for the skills of analysis, synthesis and self-judgment.

We put information in but we don't give them time to massage

the information and go through Piaget's process of assimilation

and accommodation at the concept level.

How do teachers instill this fire quote in a school that

focuses on computer-based instruction?

The computer is a tool to be used in many different ways. It is

a learning tool, it is a research tool. It is a communication tool.

So it depends on the environment and how it's orchestrated.

Bloom's taxonomy talks about levels of learning.

Comprehension is the lower level. But the student also needs

time to utilize information for analysis and synthesis. So the

computer is being used for those two purposes.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but

rather the lighting of a fire. W. B. Yeats


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So in the CAI approach you can reorganize in projects. At

problem solving small group communication working in

cooperative teams sharing research responsibilities. And using

it as a powerpoint. To a total class for communicating what you

found.

We have to provide an environment s that students can usewhat they have learned through technology.

Rarely should you see a teacher standing in front of a group of

students lecturing. That would make the assumption that all 30

youngsters are ready to receive what you are presenting and to

process the information.

Fifty years from now, what will education look like?

The Student will be the Class. We will have had years of

developing the technology and skills and the communication


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Abraham Fischler 7

banks that exist. Ways of communicating throughout the world.

Science experiments could be done remotely if we feed

information to a central point. We can be doing a great number

of things. Because of the network and because of our ability to

communicate. Thomas Friedman is not wrong. The world isflat. In economics it's already happening. The assembly plant is

in one location and the component parts come from all over,fed into a central assembly line. So cars are manufactured using

components made wherever people can get them made to meet

the quality. Education is the same thing.

[ fill in? For example, a computer based school can have a

remote laboratory where the experiments described in the

online curriculum can be performed for students to observe.]

In the books I wrote for teachers, I never answered the question

What color did you get? -- I never gave the answers to the

teacher. If you put too much acid in contrast to the base, you

are not wrong. Most books assume that you will do everything


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according to the directions, so they assume that you'll get a

specific color. But if you are not so accurate, you'll get another

color. You're not wrong whatever color you get, that's the

color you'll get.

So, if you put the color in the teacher's manual, the teacher

would tell the students You're wrong. It says that the color isintense pink and you have pale pink. So I tried where I could

not to give the teacher the answer, especially with younger

kids. Teachers didn't like the books.

Now imagine if the teacher says, Come over and see what

color I got. Why are our colors different?

That's where the learning takes place. It's not in the answer.

It takes time. It takes time away from pressure.

While you are working in the reflective environment, they are

not getting comprehension about what is being tested. So the

more we go toward the testing model, the more rigid the

classes have to become.

That's why the school needs the second class area for small-

group projects. Teachers have to be ready to move students into

that area when it's time for analysis.


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Abraham Fischler 9

Commentary: Teachers ought to be entertainers? I want to

change it.Learning should be fun to the learner.

Classrooms should be exciting. Students should be the

performers. Teachers should be facilitators and motivators

problem solving helpers, rewarding success, using language

that make learners feel good about themselves. You can do it.

As the saying goes: The teacher is a guide on the side, not asage on the stage.

The teacher of the future is an Edu-

Tainer: education that is entertaining


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Self-motivated, interested in the problem that they are working

on, helping one another sharing responsibilities. This will

happen when students work together in small groups on

projects.

You need a certain level of comprehension which the CAI

delivers. Piaget says that we redefine a concept every time we

meet a discrepant event: An event for the learner that doesn't fit

the concept that he already has. So the learner has to go

through questions: did that really exist? How do I modify theconcept to accommodate the new information?

Students go through this when they learn that electrons might

not be particles. Electrons act more like clouds in certain

circumstances.

Children are working as if I did not exist.

-- Maria Montessori


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If the student doesn't have the basic comprehension, you will

miss the mark the information that you think is a discrepant

event will go over his head. For example, you can tell a six-year-old that the earth is turning and that creates day and night

at 25,000 miles in a day. It's rotating on an axis. Why don't you

feel it? If you were in an automobile and you put your hand out

of the window you will feel it.

With a six-year-old, you're going to fast. You better start with

day is when the sun is out and Night is when the sun is

hidden. Why is the night dark? What gives light to the moon?

So you can give a six-year-old a bit of this, but he doesn't really

understand.


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Abraham Fischler 13

After introducing a discrepant event, we need to give thestudent time to process the information.

We tend to start with what the child can observe. Science for

grades 1-to-3, the focus is over what can you see?

To try to explain that the earth is turning is not going to lead to

understanding in younger students. Wait until they begin to

ask you about rotating. And they weren't all going to be able toask you at the same time.


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The test was given in early June. The blue book contind the old

blue book eams

(Fischler tells a story)

I had a physics teacher who would tell students, There will be

times when you will turn in your lab books where you will

write what you observe. Sometimes I will mark an exercisewrong and I expect you to come up and argue with me. The

students generally hated him because he

I loved him.

He forced the kids not to

cheat. He made sure that

one or two kids would

get something markedwrong even though it was right. This bothered kids. And they

would come to me to complain. He's forcing you to think and

If you don't argue with him, you will get the they

People who think outside the box get pushed aside.


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Abraham Fischler 15

Commentary: There is a core of basic knowledge that one

expects from a person at a certain point in time. I don't expect

people to be experts, but biology is a science. You ought to

have some knowledge of the animal kingdom, relationships,

the human body. There are certain understandings that you canexpect from a person at a certain level. Science is not a cultural

imperative. Our language and mathematics are cultural

imperatives. I expect every child to have a certain level.

Knowledge and ability and with a basic core of mathematics;able to handle fractions. But I don't expect everyone to know

everything about trigonometry. Robert Reich is right, as long

as we don't say master. We need a core in all areas and you

have to have the tools for self-learning: we can read English

and we can do some math... we know when to doubt and we

don't jump to conclusions.

You can teach yourself most of science if you have English and

math.

Given the widening array of possibilities, theres no

reason that every child must master the sciences, algebra,

geometry, biology, or any of the rest of the standard highschool curriculum that has barely changed in half a

century.Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor (Clinton


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Excerpts from

TheStudentIstheClass.com

(excerpts go here)


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Abraham Fischler 17

Whats Next

We invite you to subscribe to the blog, The Student is the

Class, at TheStudentIsTheClass.com. I continue to blogabout these issues and I invite you to send me questions to

comment about.

-- Abraham S. Fischler [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Endnote

Dr. Fischler began blogging in 2006 about the advantages of a

well-rounded, well-designed CAI system. His first entry at

TheStudentIsTheClass.comlays out the features of a three-tiered system that could be introduced in a zone of a public

school. Careful implementation of computer-assisted

instruction (CAI) could invigorate a K-12 environment. As a

pioneer who introduced technology to higher education and

distance learning, Dr. Fischler aims to bring new learning

methods and experiences to children and teenagers currently

stuck in school systems that have changed little since 1950.

As a taxpayer, I'm

always looking for

better ways for my

tax dollars to be

spent. As a teacher, I

want to work in a

school where students

have a role indeciding what they

will study each day.

As a trainer ofteachers, I know my limitations: I can show teachers what hasworked in my classes, but I don't have the academic

background to explain why the techniques that I pulled from

Piaget, Friedman, Littky, Gardner and Pink work.
http://thestudentistheclass.com/http://thestudentistheclass.com/http://thestudentistheclass.com/


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Abraham Fischler 19

In 2009, I saw the need for a small book that the stakeholders

in schools could carry with them and refer to often for

guidance. In the classroom, under pressure to deliver results, I

often slip back into comfortable behaviors, copying my

mentors and imposing on my students the same disciplines thatI suffered through when I was a teenager. Some of the

techniques work; others should be improved. Dr. Fischler'sperspective has guided me in selecting more effective methods.

Imposing digital devices on students who are not ready for the

potential distractions of a multi-faceted computer.

Dennis Littky, an educational pioneer in Providence, R.I.,

writes that Education is everybody's business. This quote

and commentary project began with you in mind. Teacher,student, parent, principal, taxpayer: you all will find something

new in these pages.

In the 1930s a little red book spawned a political and cultural

revolution in China. Eighty years later, why can't a small bookof commentaries by the president emeritus of a pioneering

university make a similar change in education?

If you have a favorite quotation about education that you would

like Dr. Fischler to consider commenting on in his blog, please

send your request to [email protected].

Steve McCrea

Taxpayer, teacher, advocate of CAI

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

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