Comic Sans Doesn’t Entertain
One of the bionic teachers recently posted about a number of things he sees going wrong in education.
Among my favorites:
Don’t use Comic Sans. His point? Comic Sans doesn’t make magic out of something boring you’ve written. Personally, if it’s something good you’ve written, the sight of Comic Sans simply makes me trust less what you’ve written. It’s a personal choice, and a matter of aesthetics, but I really enjoyed one commenters rationale for the use of this font in elementary school.
To paraphrase: It looks like the letters kids make in school.
Here’s my take: spend some money. Good fonts are expensive. At least, more expensive than what you might expect. A good font costs more than a cheap watch. But if you need to use printing on paper so that kids can trace, recognize, and practice letter forms, for goodness sake, get the font that works, which means you might actually have to pay for it, rather than rummage around free font sites, or look in your font menu for “the best thing.”
Learning to write, even in a digital twenty-first century, is a skill these kids will carry with them for the rest of their lives. It’s a basic, prime skill. Let’s do it right, let’s not use Microsoft’s worst (free) font as the blueprint.
I’ve always been partial to the D’Nealian alphabet that I learned by in the second grade for practicing cursive. They make and sell a font so you can use their letter forms everywhere. There are plenty more. I know our teachers are using fonts that were purchased specifically for this point.
Make the lesson exciting with technology. This is the approach so many folks try. “I added a dash of pixels and light, and the kids still didn’t pay attention.” Yeah, we know. That’s not the fix. Obvious, but I am so glad it was re-articulated again. More people need to understand this.
Labeling I don’t take this so much as a fault. I like labels. They simplify things. But these labels are now being used as excuses. So many people come to talk to me start off with the excuse. Here’s a classic:
Well, you know, I’m not so good with technology.
I cringe. I want to say, “Okay, how are we doing with teaching?” Because, really, any improvement needs to start there. But people I think assume they’ve got teaching down, it’s just the technology that they’re struggling with.
Good, effective use of technology requires a foundation of good, effective pedagogy.
Faking it. I don’t see so much faking. I see out-of-touchness. They’re not trying to “act” in a particular way, they just ignore the culture, understanding, and people (kids) they are serving. I don’t see it so much where I work, but I see it as I’ve had the opportunity to visit other schools, either in person, or though videos, reading, etc. Good teaching starts with teachers getting to know their students, and understanding from where they come. But Tom is right, people faking it is easy to spot.
Just watch an interview on You Tube of Sarah Palin.