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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > July > 26 > Entry
An education carnival odyssey
This week’s Carnival of Education is up over at the blog Text Savvy.
You can find my post on median income and standardized test scores included in this weekly roundup of the best posts around the education blogosphere last week.
The post I found most interesting this week is from a blog called Texas ED, who clearly has had a good experience with Odyssey of the Mind.
Odyssey of the Mind is an extracurricular program for kids that promotes creativity. Kids compete in teams against other teams to see who can solve an assigned problem most creatively.
Overall, I like Odyssey of the Mind and similar programs, although I’ve seen teams of widely varying quality — from those who produce very smart and interesting results to other for whom the program is just a step above playtime.
Readers, do you have experience with Odyssey or its imitators? Tell us about your experience. Do you believe, like Texas Ed, that they truly enhance student learning and creativity in kids?
UPDATE: My post about Dixie Allen’s party switch and support of vouchers also made this week’s Carnival of Ohio Politics.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: The Carnival of Education
Comments
By GH
July 28, 2006 1:33 AM | Link to this
As far as I know, OM and Destination Imagination are extra-curricular activities and generally don’t detract from the school day. But, back to the subject at hand: I think OM and DI are perhaps the MOST important things kids may do in a school year because they give them the opportunities to learn real world skills. I’m not talking about set-building or playwriting or acting, but things like, how to plan out a project months in advance. How to develop a timeline. How to work with others in a committee format. And most of all, how to improvise when the plans go south. What does this sound like? THE REAL WORLD! How many times have you had to work around the slacker on your committee or the person who demands to have his way all the time? Kids in DI and OM learn how to do it through experience. To me the competition is the LEAST interesting part of the project. Seeing young people learn to work together is what makes this so special and important.By Mary
July 26, 2006 9:06 PM | Link to this
My complaint about programs such as Odyssey of the Mind is they are bandaids used to fire up kids that should be worked into the regular school day curriculum. It is part of the great American education mush pot- a little of this, a little of that, razzle dazzle, competitions and field trips. It is used as a distraction from the quality of the regular school day and curriculum.