A poet's pie in the sky proposal got me thinking, what is it that I think every child should know by 10? Designing curriculum is a way for a country to pass down many cultural things to its children, like favored versions of national origin ("no taxation without representation" is taught in every social studies class in the United States).
Here's the original proposal:
- My ideal elementary-school curriculum would instead require all children to learn: (1) the times tables up to, say, 25; (2) a foreign language, preferably obscure; (3) the geography of a foreign land, like New Jersey; (4) how to use basic hand tools and cook a cassoulet; (5) how to raise a bird or lizard (if the child is vegetarian, then a potato); (6) poems by heart, say one per week; (7) how to find the way home from a town at least 10 miles away; (8) singing; (9) somersaults. With all that out of the way by age 12, there’s no telling what children might do.
Any revisions?
Things I didn't know I was learning until years later: • self-reliance, goal-setting and self-motivation. encouragement of curiosity. • communication, group cooperation\compromise, group leadership. • social tolerance, self-defense, objective thinking. It starts with egg hunts where one kid leads, or physically directs another kid who is blindfolded. It starts with sharing days where kids bring in object of value to them and talk about it, and the others listen and ask questions if they have any. It starts with simulating genuine human experience in a safe environment that will allow them to acquire resources and knowledge on their own, not get drilled with academic qualifications and times tables. NJ resident here, the layouts of the towns, roads and highways make no sense until you've gotten lost in them. Know what I mean? P.S. perhaps kindergarden is too early, but camping hiking and even an afternoon at the lake..matters. Edit: I somehow mistook this to be specifically Kindergarden. This comment applies to that only then.(3) the geography of a foreign land, like New Jersey;
I think is the most important element of learning. The curiosity, and the creativity are fundamentals. This remember me the TED Talk of Ken Robinson, "How schools kill creativity". It's the most viewed video of TED, and it's brilliant. http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity encouragement of curiosity.
I completely agree with you, I have seen that talk and now I must see it again. Courage, resolve, character, resourcefulness and happiness all develop from pursuing curiosity. Of course the people taking care of us want us to be safe and clean and healthy but kids and especially teens don't explore the way they used to. Not in real life, anyway, and the worst part is that never chasing mystery eventually makes you lose all desire to do so.
Your list of things you didn't know you were learning until years later are things that are actually on the curriculum kind of -- teachers who study in good teacher training schools know that what they are really teaching is how to be an optimally functioning human being. The curriculum is one way of teaching those skills. Kids also learn a lot from paying attention to how their teachers behave and treat others.
Absolutely, and it's part of that innate human experience-- to observe others and learn from them. A very young kid will be impressionable to the authority figure they spend 5 days out of the week with, and I imagine it's a terrifying risk trusting a teacher to take care of your kid like that.Kids also learn a lot from paying attention to how their teachers behave and treat others.
Growing up I spent my summers in Armenia, and occasionally my dad would take me way out of the (only) city, pull over, and we'd just start walking into the hills. I would always feel uncomfortable and gross and basically piss myself every time something buzzed by my ear, but he kept me moving anyway. Now in the states, when it rains and my friends cower into a shop to keep their manicured carcasses from experiencing nature, I take my clothes off and run in the grass. I'm not saying you should do that, I'm just saying it's a lot more fun than not doing that.
Okay I might get a bit ranty here and I'm sorry, but this is something I've dealt with and honestly care about DEEPLY. My focus is mostly mathematics, but being in an elementary classroom for the past two years taught me a lot. Not just about how kids learn, but also how restricted teachers are in what and how they can approach a subject. (A bit of a jab at the administration at schools)
These assumptions assume that the money for the school system is not getting sucked away by administrative overhead, and instead is being given directly to the instructors. I want kids to explore an idea fully. This means getting rid of other mathematics in favor of learning them more later.
During the half year, the kids should be exploring the ideas and prompted for questions (Why can't we subtract from a smaller number? Can a shape be the same shape if the number of sides change?)
Kindergarden: First half: Shapes and simple geometry
First half: Addition and subtraction
First half:
First half:
Okay now that I've got my ranting out of the way here are some other things: It's okay to be wrong sometimes. In this subject we learn about what being wrong means and why we can't always be right. We learn that if we are wrong, we simply correct ourselves and how to be lenient to others who are correcting themselves being wrong. Music In this subject, you bring some music to class that you'd like to share with a friend and share a pair of headphones then write about how it makes you feel, why you decided to share it (etc) Community In this subject, the kids can go to a special needs classroom in the school and play with or read to the students in that classroom. [ This brought back a memory I might post about later, making me tear up a bit] We learn that people are different and some people need help. We learn that involving ourselves helps everyone. Reading Reading is covered pretty well in school I think, but one thing I would like is "Enjoying books, even when you hate the book" learning to enjoy the reading, not just the story you are reading. History/Social Studies This is a class where we devote more than one month to the important people from history who were not white. We teach about the great struggles of people who have been oppressed and how we can avoid doing this in the future.
Thanks for posting this @blackboots, I love contemplating this stuff! I really like reading the other comments too, I especially like the idea of a foreign language. I would love it if a foreign language of a Native American language were included (Such as inupiaq or even more southern languages). I am really not one for teaching so called "practical skills" in school, parents should be more involved in those activities, and the school should support them if they need help.
Second half:
Names of shapes
How many sides
1st grade: Counting
Count as high as possible during the year
Count backwards and forwards
Can tell which numbers are bigger/smaller
Second half:
Adding and subtracting numbers with objects
Introduction to the idea that the smaller number is subtracted from a bigger number
Introduction to 2 - 3 and nth size subtraction and addition
2nd Grade: Problem solving using addition
Problem solving using subtraction
Second Half:
Multiplication
How to use addition to find multiplication
Multiplication in 2-3 or nth number sets
Introduction to fractions and multiplication
3rd Grade
Multiplication and geometry
Finding area of shapes
Finding number of objects in a set using multiplication
Introduction to Fractions and division
First half:
Second half:
Division
We learn about division as a "breaking up" of many objects, the inverse of multiplications "adding up"
Long division
4th Grade: Division and fractions
Fractions in shapes
Adding subtracting fractions
Second half:
Simple algebra (find "x")
Using multiplication and division to inverse each other Graphing (making, and reading graphs of all different kinds)
These were just off the top of my head, needless to say the way mathematics is approached now (and pretty much always) has been a mess of "Here is some stuff to memorize, if you don't get it, it's probably cause you're dumb" (NOTE: No teacher I have ever met would call a child dumb, nor would they think of a child as dumb, but they are restricted by a system which makes us dumb) also, this isn't "Math all day" this is just during the math period, you can't be well rounded by just doing math, you'll just end up flat.
The math curriculum as it is now is pretty damn good, research based, rooted in decades of experience. The curriculum goals tell what should be taught, not how it should be taught. And there's a big problem with how math is taught in the U.S. and many other countries. Assessment requirements drive teaching style - it is easy to teach something to be memorized to get a score on an exam. It is difficult to teach kids to make connections and appreciate structure, especially when these things are not tested well and teachers themselves are often lacking in the skills themselves. Elementary education majors have the highest level of math-anxiety of any college major in the US. Teaching geometry in kindergarten/1st grade as names of shapes and counting sides is part of the problem. It doesn't matter if a child calls a pentagon a "house shape", what is important is identifying attributes of shapes, how shapes are alike and different, how shapes fit together and can be taken apart to make other shapes, how shapes can be grouped together by attributes and be alike in some ways and not alike in other ways. Geometry should include 2d and 3d shapes. Attributes can be things like "how the shape rolls" with explorations of why cylinders and cones rolls differently. Kids should be exploring shapes in all kind of different contexts and materials and with their bodies and using shapes to make patterns and artwork. There is a huge rich world of shape beyond names and number of sides! Often neglected is spatial reasoning as well, which is hugely underestimated in the effect it has on all other reasoning, including non-spatial tasks. At ages 3-6 kids' minds are most fertile for learning the groundwork for geometry and other mathematics, and kids who are behind in 1st don't catch up later. (2012 NIH study, Clements, lots and lots more if anyone's interested). Sieze the day with the young 'uns! Especially with mathematics! Early numeracy is the greatest predictor of success in school -- quantitative reasoning in kindergarten is an even a better predictor of success in reading in school than reading ability in kindergarten is!! (2008-2011 Duncan et al metastudy of 36000 children in 3 countries)
[EDIT: Sorry for the long post, basically we agree] I feel that I deeply understand that the name of the object is not the object, and that naming an object has no bearing on what it is. However, I have seen kids come into classrooms with no idea what a circle is and that is the problem, especially in poor schools. In order to discuss the language of math, you need to have a basis to work with, and as such, at that level counting and shapes seems like a good starting point. Even if it's not mathematics. (I'm sure you know this, but I'd like to clear it up for someone else who might be passing by):
If you and I want to talk about birds, and one of us says chicken while the other says humming, while we're both looking at a robin, we're going to be confused. We need to both agree "This is a robin" then we can discuss the structure of the wings, the red breast, the blue eggs it leaves in the nest. So, of course I think kids should be able to explore all about the shapes! That is pretty much my whole point. At this time, the student has no choice but to move on to the next subject. They get no time to explore the model they just learned, they test and then move on. Also, perhaps you are thinking that my opinion is that geometry is not important, or that spatial reasoning would not have a place in my dream curriculum. Quite the opposite! Being able to build and break down shapes, I have found has helped many students in other areas. I would encourage more play with physical shapes. I would not however ask them to calculate mindlessly. I would twist a two dimensional circle, I would ask them if they could find a way that you can twist a band and always end up on the same side! We would explore these things. We would have TIME because we aren't rushing toward the next subject. In fact one of my favorite authors has a great deal to say about spatial reasoning. If we look at George Pólya's seminal work "How to Solve It" one of the first examples used is that of a parallelepiped wherein the room is used as an example for finding the diagonal. But it's true we are at a place where most elementary educators fear math, I've heard it come from teachers mouths. They've never been lost while solving something, only to find the answer after a brief night of sleep and a cup of coffee. Alleviating the math anxiety is important to me also. But I can't blame the teachers, I just can't. They already deal with so much, especially in elementary where they have multiple subjects and activities. Please do not misunderstand me, I am not dismissing current research into mathematics, I am dismissing the rush of administrators in schools to push kids to the "next level" and not give kids the chance to play with an idea. The kids never get to see the fun puzzles that can come because we are all so ready to test them and move on, and it saddens me greatly. I am not a real teacher, just someone who volunteered for a while with my wife who is a real teacher.
Yes! I think we basically agree also! It just caught me that your list began with kindergarten learning the names of shapes and sides... this is what a lot of kindergarten teachers think geometry with small children should be, and there is much much more than that! I see classrooms where teachers are proud that kids know the names of shapes and can point to the red rectangle and say it's a rectangle. Show them a red triangle and they also say it's a rectangle, or turn the triangle upside down and it is no longer a triangle it is an ice cream cone. A big part of my job right now is to help kindergarten teachers and helpers know the big ideas that can and should be developed in kindergarten math. I'm not blaming teachers - saying the problem is with how math is taught does not mean I blame teachers. I taught preservice teachers for 10 years and for the past 6 I've worked with teachers at all levels in classrooms across the country. I have the greatest respect for teachers and all they do and accomplish. I work with eager and excited teachers who are thrilled when they see what mathematics can be. Many teachers, along with most of the population, have no idea what mathematics can be. It is part of a HUGE cultural problem with what people have experienced in their own school as to what mathematics is. I agree with you 100% that we need TIME to explore these ideas. I see too the rush that because today is the second Tuesday in October we will learn to add two numbers that sum to greater than 10. I enjoy teaching math art so much because there are few expectations or press for time, and we can explore and think and share ideas and become inspired. Funny you mention moebius strips -- I did moebius strips last week with 6th graders. We went through a planned progression of constructions for about 45 minutes and accumulated a list of questions on the board as we went along. The kids were beside themselves to do their own exploring -- and they got the next 45 minutes to try things out and share. I saw results I've never seen before and these kids had so many ideas. One kid even had the idea that taping two moebius strips together could give different results by cutting them depending on if the handedness of the strips matched or differed. Kids took things home to try out themselves -- I'm excited to see them tomorrow and see how many kept exploring on their own. The level of engagement and excitement was so high -- and yet this is not something you can put on a test so this kind of activity gets passed over and is generally seen as unimportant. I have many many such activities that I think are some of the most important things we can be doing in math class, but they can't be assessed well and thus they are not important in the system. Here's some of their creations. The top right was 4 non-twisted rings taped together at right angles, then each ring cut in half. Top left is 6 rings. 3 rings didn't work well, this student conjectured that it only made a form that sat flat with an even number of rings, and she had a good idea what it would look like with 8 rings. She also has an idea how to modify the end rings so that all the lengths are the same after the cut. Math is about thinking. Too often in the classroom it is just about memorizing.
It's interesting to hear you both talk about teaching math. I work on math with my three year old, not intensively but I try to make it creative and fun. She counts into the twenties well but she losses focus beyond that and I'm not being a drill sargent. I do things like put out a pile of M&M's and we count them. Then she has to make two piles with the same number of M&M's in them and count them. I did even numbered piles the first few times we played this game and then I started introducing piles with odd numbers. "There is one left over! What is going on here!" Talk a bit about even and odd number piles, hope to move to piles of three with the same number of objects soon. No idea if this is a very good game for teaching but we have a good time. Puzzles seem great for young kids and spacial relations. We have some picture puzzles with boarders some that are in the shape of the object being puzzled (stuff like fruits) and another free form geometric shape puzzle where you can try and copy form or just do what you want. We talk about how triangles can look different and still be triangles but also that it's strange that rectangles, rhombuses and squares are called different thing but are so much alike. Reading what you guys wrote I'm realizing that it's time to go three dimensional, I see a construction project in our future this week. Cones, cylinders and spheres will be interesting.
That sounds great cgod! Those are all really good things to do! After your daughter has counted like, 8, things, try adding one more and asking "how many now?" and see if she can answer without counting again. Try taking them away one at a time to practice one-fewer relationships as well. Only 20% of 1st graders can count backwards from 25. Counting by 2s and 3s and 5s and other multiples are really fun too. By the time my daughter was in 1st grade she could add and subtract 3 digit numbers mentally, including numbers that crossed over hundreds, and she could manage things like 135 minus 200. Her amazing number sense continued until she learned the standard algorithm -- and then she could no longer add mentally. She eventually came back to mental math, but it really made me mad that they started teaching the algorithm in her class when most of the kids had very little number sense. Algorithms are the beginning of the end for kids and math, they literally stop thinking at that point. I see lots of complaints from parents in the US about the "new" methods of teaching -- many schools are starting to focus on a variety of mental math methods which I think is absolutely brilliant. Parents are dead set against it because they don't understand that this is really really important. Parents see kids doing strange ways of subtracting 17 from 45 for example by thinking "17 + 3 is twenty, plus 20 more is 23, and 5 more makes 28" or thinking 45 - 17 is the same as 48 - 20 (add 3 to both parts) and so its 28. Parents insist that this is a waste of time when they learned to just write out the algorithm and manipulate digits and get the answer. But that is a rant for another day. Keep up the good work!
Teaching that way blows my mind. When I help someone with math I guess I've always used the standard algorithm as a shared language but I know that when I've asked people how they resolve a problem in their head almost everyone does it differently. I've learned better ways of doing problems in my head by hearing how other people go about solving problems differently from me. Feels like there is something useful in having a standardized way of expressing basic problems even if I know that most people will have a bunch of "tricks" they use to actually do math. It's kind of a strange paradigm shift for me to think about not teaching the way I was I was taught. Even with that I already planed on teaching my kid easier ways to get to their final answer. Even in college mathematics I remember being penalized on tests and if I didn't work backwards to express things I had already calculated another way in standard notation. I don't think I even had a way to express how I calculated some things in notation, just little rule of thumb stuff.Parents see kids doing strange ways of subtracting 17 from 45 for example by thinking "17 + 3 is twenty, plus 20 more is 23, and 5 more makes 28" or thinking 45 - 17 is the same as 48 - 20 (add 3 to both parts) and so its 28.
Those seem like great, specific goals for the mathematical aspect of an elementary education. I couldn't/wouldn't debate you as to the pace of the material, as I have absolutely no idea what age a child is by looking at them, let alone where they are mentally. This is a class where we devote more than one month to the important people from history who were not white. We teach about the great struggles of people who have been oppressed and how we can avoid doing this in the future. Have you read A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn? While I love the idea of a foreign language (I took German in high school, Russian in college), I don't think a curriculum that taught a language that less than a few thousand people spoke could be defended from a cost-perspective. While I subjectively think every person should know another language, I don't know if it would be defensible to mandate children learning a dying language.History/Social Studies
I especially like the idea of a foreign language. I would love it if a foreign language of a Native American language were included (Such as inupiaq or even more southern languages).
NOTE: This is for both primary and secondary school education, and is relevant to the British curriculum I would keep English and Mathematics as they are, perhaps make them a little bit more intensive in terms of learning times tables (back when I was in primary school I learned up to the 12 times table.) I would also introduce concepts such as algebra and trigonometry before Year 7 (secondary school) starts; at around Year 5 or 6. Other things I'd change are... - Teach relevant foreign languages spoken in many places across the world such as Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Portuguese. The problem with the English school system is that foreign languages aren't really taught until secondary school or the final five years of your mandatory education. Also, you HAVE to learn French starting from Year 7 and have the choice of studying Spanish, German or Italian in addition to French from Year 8 onwards. In other words, FIGS is the only choice you have. Also, from 11 onwards isn't a very good age to be learning a language. It's better to start them off when they're 5 or 6 or even younger if possible. - Add Computer Science to the curriculum during Primary and Secondary School. In Primary School it would be simple logic-based programs and basic training in either C, Python or Javascript then moderate training in different programming languages and more complex programming concepts in secondary school. This would not only prepare students who choose to do computer science at college and university much better but would also increase Britain's abysmal standard of education when it comes to teaching computing. - Merge ICT and Business & Communications Systems as GCSE subjects. Basically, when I did an ICT qualification at school before the GCSE subject was introduced, all I really did was learn how to make a website with a piss-poor WYSIWYG editor (Microsoft Frontpage, and no I am not kidding either.) Business & Communications Systems taught me more useful skills which could have also been applied to the ICT curriculum such as how to type meeting minutes, letters, memoranda, and other forms of correspondence on top of how to use various parts of the Microsoft Office suite and what fonts and formatting to or not to use. I would also add PC repair skills into the ICT curriculum such as how to assemble, disassemble and repair PCs, and teach them about the nature of malware, antiviral software, how to do a fresh reinstall of Windows, use other operating systems such as Mac OSX, Linux, Solaris, etc. - Rename Citizenship to Law and Politics, teach it in primary school and teach it as a GCSE subject. It should be designed to teach children how UK politics works, some basic pointers on British law, how Parliament works, how legal precedent works, how the court system works, how statutes work and what is currently legal and illegal in Britain. - Add mandatory sex education from Year 7 onwards as part of Law and Politics. Don't just teach children about the human anatomy in Science lessons. Instead, teach them about the realities of underage sex, pregnancy, how to use contraception, the various types of sexually transmitted infections and diseases one can catch and the legalities when it comes to consenting to sex or having sex under the heavy influence of alcohol. I feel with more education on this, we'd see far less teenage pregnancies and teenagers generally being more careful. - Teach first aid training from Year 9 onwards. - Add Game Design as a GCSE subject. In this, there would be several parts of the curriculum including learning how to design a board or trading card game as the first part, then learning how to use tools such as CRYdev, Unreal Development Kit, Unity3D, Stencylworks as the second unit and a choice of optional units such as producing game audio, producing 2D and 3D art for use in a game, or how to build a video game from scratch using several choices of programming languages and libraries. - Change Year 10 Work Experience. Change the law to mandate employer involvement in the scheme, make schools more responsible for helping students prepare for the process which they've never done before and make placements more meaningful than being a mere tea-boy.
I love the Game Design idea! Absolutely! Think how much math kids learn by designing a game and then creating the pieces and board and rules. So much valuable mathematics in design, plus the feeling of accomplishment of creating something and learning to use digital design tools! Wow! Sex Ed definitely. Here in Norway there are very few taboos about talking sex with kids. Kids think it's funny that people in other countries find sex embarrassing, and Norway has one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the world. I'd add religion and ethics to the list as well, and study major religions and their impact on various societies.
1. reading/writing/programming 2. gym/fitness 3. music 4. language 5. math 6. science 7. storytelling etc...
What would storytelling look like? How would you teach that?
Recently discussed this topic after listening to a fellow go on and on about his experiences with inflatable boats: Good stories should have a point. How you teach storytelling, in fact how you teach anything, is an art. Curriculum - what to teach is important - but what we learn is not necessarily on the curriculum. Of course, teaching storytelling is also teaching public speaking. Improv classes have a game called 1-2-3-4. I have found it to be an excellent way of learning the basics of storytelling. (but not necessarily what goes into making a point.)
While I completely agree, I think this is too vague to be useful as a teaching method. Don't bore the listener, while an integral rule of effective story telling, isn't a launch pad from a creative stand point. What do you mean when you say good stories should have a point? But that game is a great exercise, I remember doing similar things in middle school and being completely hooked on those improvisation classes. I think it teaches a student to strive within a bounded environment.Good stories should have a point.
The link to that game is very cool, I'll bring it up to my public speaking class that does things like that for fun. Do you simply mean a conclusion to the story like achieving the goal or resolving the conflict (i.e. the "punch line"), or that particular message or "moral of the story" should be conveyed? If the latter, I'm curious to see if there are indeed "good" stories that don't have a message or moral, and what that would look like.Good stories should have a point
mknod's answer come close to what I mean: Is there an answer to the question 'Why am I telling this story' or is my name Mr. Can't-Stop-Talking? So I asked my date why was he going on and on about his experiences with inflatable boats? He said, "We are sitting here looking out on the water and I am talking about the things I see and what they remind me of." That's not a point. The point could be, I want to impress you, I want to get close to you. The point could be, Never buy an inflatable boat. The point could be, The store that kept replacing or refunding my stupid useless boats is a good place -- but it wasn't. Ultimately the point was this: The glue that is used in the seams cannot handle the heat - but I had to impose the point on the story because he was going round and round. My take-home message is this: . . . Thank you for listening. Are there any questions. (My favourite) Let me end with a story: . . . Thank you. Let me suggest to thenewgreen who raised this topic: If we could teach the fundamentals of storytelling in schools (beginning, middle, end), a reason, a goal (to connect, to teach, to solve problems, to share experiences and feelings), other things - job interviews, socializing, shyness, relationships, relating, and so on would be easier. I might have some ideas on how as well.Do you simply mean a conclusion to the story like achieving the goal or resolving the conflict
A conclusion is very helpful! Good speakers will let the audience know when they end:
Pardon my delay, I just emerged from a week-long evaluation of who I am as a person, offered to me as a percentage of who I'm expected to be. Ok I feel better now. Anyway this is awesome info, and I will certainly start trying to apply it. That story ending is always neat and I've noticed it very commonly in college commencement speeches, some TEDTalks too. I used to be very strong in regards to public speaking, interviews, and communicating with adults especially. It did me wonders in applying for schools and programs as I was always able to impress the interviewer, and I've been student body president in a school of 1,000 for three years running (speeches are the greatest exposure candidates here have for votes). I'm losing that now though, because of a million issues I have yet to sort out for myself and I guess a bit of fear I simply never allowed before. Thanks for these tips again though, maybe I'm in for a comeback.
1. I'm on a retreat to get away from expectations - but I have a sense that they follow me 2. This sounds like math - maybe mknod can give us the ratio. 3. This sounds like a formula for happiness: if who I am is 100% of who I'm expected to be, then I'm a robot (well-programmed). If who I am is 0% of what I'm expected to be then I'm a hermit. What's the right balance? -- just waking up, let's ask hubski later. Edit : While I took your comment metaphorically, I'm aware that you are talking about the marking process that teachers threaten students with.I just emerged from a week-long evaluation of who I am as a person, offered to me as a percentage of who I'm expected to be.
This sentence made me shiver -- which is unusual in this climate. I want everyone to read that sentence so maybe I'll use it in a separate post. Reactions:
This was the hardest thing for the kids to understand in my experience, at least at the 1st/2nd/3rd grade level where I was, the hardest thing was just "Why am I telling this story? What information can I convey?" I am going to show the 1-2-3-4 thing to my wife lil very cool.Good stories should have a point.
In my elementary school years we did have a storytelling curriculum. Towards the end of each school year all of the students would write and illustrate their own story for "Young Authors Day." Then, on Young Authors Day we had some activities having to do with storytelling and what we had come up with. We also had children's authors come to the school. The one that I remember most clearly was Bernard Waber author of Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. I never particularly enjoyed what I came up with, but it was a good experience. And now I've just found out that Bernard Waber passed away last year.
Programming is a great idea. It seems like there are so many more tools now than I had but they are so abstracted above the OS (java, python, even perl), I worry that the kids aren't getting to love the computer in the same way I did. Maybe it's nostalgia but my co-workers and I frequently talk about spending our teenage years trying to find some obscure documentation or writing code to solve an algebra problem.
I'm in the camp that says the best thing you can do for a young kid is expose them to as many types of books as possible. If you can instill a love of learning/understanding/knowing in an eight year old, he or she will do your job for you. Science also tells us that kids at that age need way more of a recess equivalent than they are allowed. Couple that with frequent school-related exposures to nature ... big field trips or even just little things (I remember my elementary school encouraging us all to go to a P-T meet and greet held not at my school but rather under the Congress Ave bridge to watch nightly bat movements). So. Books, physical activity (the more student-organized the better ... by fifth grade we were setting up our own soccer matches during our 25 minutes recess period), nature. mknod already hammered out math so I'll skip that. Scientific method is vital. Teaching kids to apply it to not just science but things like conflict resolution, social interactions, decision-making... etc. Finally, art.
Can't forget the art, daily too. My sixth grade teacher had us all make a sketchbook that we drew in each day for 10-15 minutes right after recess. There was an emphasis on writing the current date on each page that we worked on. That way we could take an excellent idea and elaborate on it for days at a time. I still have my sketchbook and share it each year with my 8th graders in my homeroom class. I encourage them to create one in their "extra time". Helps provide direction to those kids that might otherwise sit and find trouble instead of creative output.
That's really awesome. I think that this simple, three item list covers every subject a student could possibly need or want to learn. I think each should have equalish weight, and that everything else should be learned within this framework. Everything in life relates to quantitative reasoning, creative expression, and cultural understanding or empathy.