Today I started volunteering in a local elementary school, helping students with disabilities. I know, you can’t learn that much in 90 minutes, but I was definitely surprised by a few things on day 1. Most pertinent:

It wasn’t all intuitive. I was continually surprised by the things that we have to be taught, that I’d assumed were just ideas we picked up by intuition. First and foremost: Fact vs opinion. I forgot that schools have formal exercises for this, though given our current political discourse, I’m really glad we do train children in this distinction.

Other interesting takeaways:

• Technology invades the classroom:
  • Students are scored in real-time by their teachers using a mobile app, and analysis of their behavior and their education is immediately available to parents. Real-time report cards are here.
  • E-libraries: Students in the classroom I was working in read from a library of interactive e-books tailored to their reading level. I think these technologies are great for making up-to-date books more accessible/available, and their interactive nature makes them great educational tools. Kids listen to the book as they read. Words are highlighted in-sync. If a student doesn’t know a word, they can highlight it for a definition and pronunciation. I don’t know if the presentation of the books is that effective for improving literacy; there are probably only 10-15 words per page. I do think it’s a good start though.
• Odd relics:
  • Even as tech invades, some things just won’t go away: Pencils and red pens. Notebooks, and letters to the teacher as exercises. Things that I remember from my education, and that I would bet my parents and grandparents remember, are still very-much a part of the curriculum.