Changing Education Paradigm: Nicole, Alexandria, Katherine

#1. As a group we found the presentation, and content provided useful and entertaining. A main point was how education needs to change. The video presented different options for this change and different issues inside our current education system. As a country ADHD has increased with time, and the presentation demonstrated probable reasons to why this increase is happening. The video exemplified how divergent thinking is hindered by our education system.

#2. As a group we all agree with the prominence with ADHD and the fact that it is not an epidemic. In the school setting Alexandria has seen this, “upping of medicine” or referrals to the doctor to solve attention issues. Katherine particularly liked the idea that our education system is like a factory. Expanding on this idea we see as a group that students/kids are just thrown into the system and all expected to produce similar results. Feeding off this idea a point Nicole found very interesting, is why we are in school based off age. None of us have ever thought of why we are divided by our age, and is age really factor in education. We all resonated with the comments on academic and non-academic students. In our past schooling experiences this topic was drawn on and we all knew if we were the academic or non-academic type.

#3. We would have liked to see more evidence to why ADHD was so prevalent in the east side of the country. We know that ADHD is prevalent in the west as well and we feel like this topic deserved more attention. Also, we would have liked to see more discussion to when the “ADHD epidemic” started and its origins. We realize that there is no one answer to the issues in our education system, however he stated many problems and few suggestions. We as a group would have liked to see some suggestions to change all the issues he presented. 

#4. For Nicole videos like this are in a way discouraging. Since, it focuses on all the issues, that are long embedded into our system it makes us think as future teachers that we will just become part of this system. On the flip side, as Alexandria pointed out, this motivates us as future educators to see what we need to change and how important this change is. Katherine pointed out, as future teachers maybe we should not jump to medication or diagnosis of ADHD. Maybe trying to find out what the root of the boredom is will be a better more natural solution to the attention problems.

#5. We feel divergent thinking is really something we as future teachers, and as students need to implement in this class. The part of the video that states, here is the question and there is only one answer, and it is in the back of the book, is very true for many of the classes we are in. As a group we feel falling away from this idea and implementing divergent thinking is really important.