We live in a world where ‘education’ and the accumulation of skills have assumed fanatical proportions. We tch tch at heavy school bags, but continue putting noses to the grindstone. Always in the hope of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Except, that in the first decade of the 2000’s the way to that pot is no luminescent rainbow. And the sad part is, it needn’t be so. The proof of the pudding -- the training experience of companies including U.S.A.-based AT & T’s National Product Training Centre and Audi, IBM and Seimens in Germany; Pentagon’s Institute of Defense Analysis; and teacher Charles Gritton’s efforts in a Des Moines ghetto school that became a case study of success.
Putting the ‘no pain, no gain’ credo of learning to shame is the concept of accelerated learning, perhaps more famous as ‘superlearning’ following breakthroughs made by Sheila Ostrander, Lynn Schroeder and Nancy Ostrander since the 1970’s. However, the ball was actually set rolling about a decade before they started. It was behind the Iron Curtain in the 1960’s that Dr. Georgi Lozanov, a Bulgarian psychiatrist, first applied suggestion and relaxation techniques to classroom learning and termed these methods ‘Suggestopedia’. These pioneering techniques engendered and gave impetus to what we now know as Suggestive – Accelerative Approaches to Learning.
Accelerated learning believes that the human brain can work at least two to five times faster (‘superlearning’) and retain more and for longer periods (‘supermemory’ or ‘hypermnesia’) if it is put into the ‘right state’ of “relaxed alertness” (therefore non-stress, therefore pleasure) for learning. In a nutshell, it works by addressing our unconscious as well as our conscious mind, exploiting the power of our own imagination since it has been found that a trained imagination helps learn better – thereby aiding in accessing what are termed as the “success patterns” in our bodies, minds and emotions.
Significantly, ‘superlearning’ shows us how to relax our body and calm our mind at will. It is sometimes described as “global learning” since it involves our entire inner world, including parts repressed in older styles of education, and goes to the extent of our most
ancient memory of life, exactly according to nature’s blueprint for us. Moreover, it is global in the sense that the techniques can be adapted and used in virtually any culture to learn virtually anything, age and background no bar. It
President Ronald Reagan once described America as, “A Nation at Risk,” He was addressing this statement to the education department thirty years ago and meant it as a wake-up call. He was aware that the United States was falling behind in education and needed to take action in order to prevent the demise of the country. Reagan correctly predicted the grim fate of America if education did not see improvement. Today, research finds that American education is failing to provide the necessary skills to succeed in college and various careers. The quality of education in America is a growing issue and every year graduate students are finding it more difficult to obtain high paying jobs and start his or her career. According to studies conducted globally, the curriculum in America is not as advanced and years behind international schools in countries such as China and Japan. There is much controversy in government over what can be done to reverse the situation in public schools but possible solutions that have been suggested are hiring more qualified teachers, more classroom time, and investing more money into education.
For several years, I have been curious about the role of cognition in human learning, namely: how we learn, unlearn and relearn. How can new technologies can be applied to improve learning? I believe knowing how to learn, unlearn and relearn, especially in collaborative teams, equips us with the ability to know how to apply knowledge and skills to address problems of the 21st century. My goal is to work with the best people possible in order to conduct research and develop technology solutions that help people achieve their full learning potential. The inspiration drawn from Dr. Saxberg’s achievements, along with my experience in academic research, learning sciences and technology design, and recommendations from a group of accomplished faculty at the University of Washington, have convinced me the ideal path to take is to pursue a PhD in PSE / LSTD at Stanford University. This is [a, the] critical next step towards achieving my aspiration.
Is education wasted on low income families? Are housing projects and ghettos nothing except undying monsters for taxpayers to fight? According to society, maybe. According to Principal Clark, no. Not only does he believe in his students, but he forces them to believe in themselves. Joe Clark makes very compelling appeals to the three rhetorical devices, pathos, ethos and, logos. Joe Clark was an excellent principal in all areas, this idea is further proven by the speech he gave his students before their skills test.
Smith, Hallie. MA CCC-SLP. The Benefits of Downtime: Why Learners’ Brains Need a Break. “Scientific Learning.” 13 December 2013. Web. 12 April 2014.
The university-statehouse-industrial complex has grown such that the traditional models of primary and secondary education have survived two or three decades beyond their practical use. With a public school system that segregates and discriminates based on, “college material or not?” (Brolin & Loyd, 1989) and a university system that places only one in five graduates in work in their field of major (cite), our educational system has passed its prime and is still training and educating for 20th century job markets that no longer exist. The way that we educate and what we educate for and why needs rethinking from the top down and needs to be more practical and pragmatic. Career and technical education (CTE) consisting of specialized, targeted, and focused vocational programs at all levels do more than just prepare a student for a real job – these programs have practical education and socialization value that conventional classrooms centered around a teacher’s monologue for many do not. Nowhere is the added value of such targeted programs more useful and valuable than in special classes, courses, and CTE training aimed at students with disabilities.
Weiten, W., Dunn, D.S., Hammer, E.Y. (2011). Psychology Applied to Modern Life. Belmont, Ca. Cengage Learning
With the fast advances in innovation, a significant number of today 's employments now require more than a high school education or trade skills. Achievement in the workforce is progressively characterized by the capacity to think fundamentally, control a PC, and to work cooperatively in a teaming domain. Today 's school training builds up these capacities, furnishing people with priceless business and individual aptitudes and information,
Friedman interviewed Alan Blinder, a Princeton economist who suggested the United States needs a “transformation in education to produce workers for jobs that will exist in our future society.” (Friedman, 2007) The Princeton economist also states that there is a requirement in the future that the work force needs to be flexible and capable of dealing with non-routine change. (Friedman, 2007) Friedman learned from Alan Blinder that the parents, educators and mentors of today and tomorrow need to focus on the importance “how we educate our children versus focusing merely on the volume of education.” (Friedman, 2007) Based on Friedman’s travel across international borders and his ability to interview Blinder, students, and other professionals in our diverse world, Friedman developed five skill sets or attitudes toward learning that will assist in synergizing our young generation for the future. These five skill sets are called “the right stuff.” (Friedman, 2007) Friedman sugg...
Coon, D. & Mitterer, J. (2013) Introduction to Psychology Belmont CA. : Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Retrieved May 07, 2014
From infancy to adulthood, organisms are always learning. The conscious and the subconscious are taking in information and sorting it, discarding irrelevant information and storing the relevant. The most common mode of gaining knowledge is through repetitions and memorization. These methods are effective for knowing exact definitions but do not develop understanding. In O Americano Outra Vez, Richard Feynman describes his teaching experiences while at the Brazilian Center for Physical Research. There he discovers the flaw in the modern education system, students are memorizing material but are unable to apply it to a real life scenarios, demonstrating they are gaining knowledge but not understanding it. Similar to Feynman’s Brazilian class,
Education remains a cornerstone for society as it has for decades. Technology advances, the economy fluctuates, and politics change, but education remains, not only important but imperative for personal and social growth. Yet, as important as it is touted to be, the quality and purpose of learning is often lost in the assembly-line, manufactured process of education that exists today.
Four decades of psychological research have taught us there is no one right way to learn. Our minds are as unique as our fingerprints. Our ability to learn is not necessarily related to high or low intelligence quotients, but rather a convergence of four important aspects of our perso...
The sites of memory tell that we must create archives, preserve memories because the memories will not occur again naturally. Memory becomes a history with each passing moment. In modern societies today, memory is archival through recording, taking pictures. With the advent of modern technology, people are creating memories and preserving them as well. As today it is very difficult to draw a line of distinction where we can say what to remember and what not to. The prediction is impossible what we should therefore remember. “Memory transforms from historical to psychological, social to individual, from repetition to creating re-memories.”(Nora: 15)
Education is a vital tool for lifelong success but there are many areas of concern in the current system of public education. Education reform has been a constant occurrence since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Every year, specialists develop
Simple approaches and flexible means are the key to effective learning. Monotony and regimentalized fashion of learning is usually not recommended for the growing minds to ensure that the minds remain open and accept more stimuli from the surroundings.