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A useful website including examples of learning and teaching materials about humanism.

Gamze, thanks for sharing. Especially I liked the "humanist perspectives" part since a teacher might not have difficulty in implementing a pre-planned curriculum, however, s/he might have hardship while creating a humanistic classroom. Because, in education, what is a humanistic element is and what is not is not so clear as traditional views. Remember what Ana said, "It seems some of you think that humanism means freeing yourselves or the educational environment. Humanism means enabling students to set a goal and work together to achieve that goal." Ana tries to say that we should not let learning occurs just by chance. That is not humanism. Humanistic teacher just should allow students what they want to do and teach them considering their way of learning and interests. That's why I found humanist perspectives part really useful. To illustrate, to touch on environmental issues in the classroom, you can read the related part for grasping the idea of how a humanistic teacher should behave while teaching this issue.

Some useful explanations and examples for humanistic environment in a school regarding curriculum, methods and facilities

Burcu, thank you for sharing. I must confess that I did not understand the difference between humanism and neo humanism:). They seemed almost the same to me. In the movie, children are running in the environment, observing the world, helping people, establishing love and trust with peers and etc. And their ages are small. I support the idea that small children should be made aware of their uniqueness. However, when they grow up, we will have to show them science, math, history and etc. The bulk of knowledge in the world and in our education might unable school to continue humanism in education. Actually, it means that especially for higher graders, we should use humanism as an element in classrooms, not a whole teaching strategy since as wee from the video, creating humanistic classroom is not feasible at all and may not be affordable for higher number of students. In the video they said that firstly they "choose" students. It means that, it is a private school. For private school, one can create almost % 100 percent humanistic environment. However, in public schools, teachers have to integrate humanistic elements into predetermined educational environments.

President of Institute of Humane Education give a talk. Web page of the institute: http://www.humaneeducation.org/ From their web site: Humane education includes 4 elements: Providing accurate information (so we have the knowledge to face challenges); Fostering the 3C's: curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking (so we have the tools to meet challenges); Instilling the 3R's: reverence, respect, and responsibility (so we have the motivation to confront challenges); Offering positive choices and tools for problem solving (so we will be able to solve challenges).

in another talk about humanistic education ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxvMqhxt-SI ) the speaker gave credit to this talk so I wanted to share it with you.

"impact of technology" part made me think that using technology in education is not valuable without how to use it. The project FATİH is generally taken a big step of using technology in state schools. "What is the cost?" "Are they necessary?" "Will our teachers use it?" are most asked questions. However, "How to use it?" is rare. Here with the word "use" I don't refer to running the devices. I mean the way technology be used in accordance to the educational objectives. As Chomsky says, without knowing what to do, using educational technology effectively is difficult.

There were several points that got my attention in this video. The first one was Chomsky's sentence saying that education had a value in itself. The purpose of it was to create "better" human beings, not bigger human capital for money. At this point, he opposed to idea that all generations should be given enough knowledge about math and science in order to increase people with scientific knowledge that will lead to more money income. Rather, education should foster the ideas of being independent in thoughts, being creative, having the ability and willingness to pursue one's own interest, and learning to learn on one's own. The second one was the analogy that Chomsky used. He made an analogy between technology and a hammer. He said that with a hammer you can either construct a building or smash a school down. This is about how you use the hammer, and it is the same with technology. Thus, it is more important that for what purpose we will use the technology than simply how to use technology. The last one was about achievement tests. Chomsky said that tests do not have so much value. You can pass a test after studying hard for about 3 weeks. Nevertheless, it does not mean that you will remember even the names of the topics that was covered in the exam after 3 weeks of the exam. That's why exploration, self learning, project-based learning and formative assessment is much more important and promising compared to achievement tests.

This will be one of the readings for the Humanism week

An helpful site which includes all strategies about implications of humanism in classroom.

Also check some other videos on new kinds of schools. Perhaps some connections can be made to the humanism week.

This is video is generally about the time perception of people and its effects on human life. The first five minutes give background info, then it talks about the effects of time perception on educational processes. I found it very interesting, I hope will, too.

There are so many interesting metaphors. I liked them. The associations between educational concepts and time perception are very interesting in this video.

Pinker, talking about his famous book. I recommend reading the book.

This is our comparison table by Dinçer, Hatice, Sinem, Burcu, Defne :)

Defne, It is better to address them in the table. Perhaps, you can add couple points there.

Evrim Hocam, I addressed to the specific approaches in the table as you wished:)

This piece of news may challenge our understanding and effort of using technology in teaching!

A movie that has so much fun. It provides some lessons to be learnt by educators as well. Recommended.

I watched this. Fun!

Science fields do not seem famous any more.

The important point in this case is that only girls who study for A-level physics are the ones who came from Girls' schools. It means that as the text stated, mix schools have a kind of characteristic that stereotype the physics as if it was boys' area. However, in my opinion, that's not true. Unless a job does not require so much muscles, it can be handled by both males and females. In physics, the brain, intelligence, and the disciplined work is necessary which are highly available in human beings, not just only in males.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/9609566/Girls-put-off-studying-science-in-mixed-gender-schools-says-headmistress.html Another news related to this!