Some kind soul nominated this blog for “best education blog” in some award process last year, but that was as far as this blog got. Several good education blogs were nominated, but I wasn’t impressed with the final standings. My candidates didn’t rank 1, 2, or 3.
So, should we swear off blog award? Heck, no! As Roger Beynon would say, everything someone says has potential value. And really, there is a lot of good stuff in a lot of these blogs.
So get on over to the 2007 Weblog Awards page on education, and check out the blogs in the running (do it now — you can vote tonight and tomorrow).
One blog excited me a lot — not because it covers education particularly well, but because it’s done by high school students. It’s solid, and it should give your students an idea of just what they can do. Even if you don’t check out the nominatees, go see the James Logan Courier.
Meanwhile, here are the ten finalists — only one of which I link to on this blogroll, which is a clue that I need to get out more, and a clue that there are a lot of high quality blogs out there:
Finalist Links
The Jose Vilson
Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs
Frumteacher
Hobo Teacher
NYC Educator
Education Week
Matthew K. Tabor, Education for the Aughts
James Logan Courier
The Miss Rumphius Effect
IvyGate
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
In the Literature category, I rather like “Classical Bookworm”.
http://arb0rv1tae.typepad.com/bookworm/
As to high schools and teachers, a student got Pat Conroy involved in a recent censorship controversy in West Virginia.
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/News/2007102326
“I’ve enjoyed a lifetime love affair with English teachers, just like the ones who are being abused in Charleston, West Virginia, today. My English teachers pushed me to be smart and inquisitive, and they taught me the great books of the world with passion and cunning and love. Like your English teachers, they didn’t have any money, either, but they lived in the bright fires of their imaginations, and they taught because they were born to teach the prettiest language in the world. I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to damage a kid. They take an unutterable joy in opening up the known world to their students, but they are dishonored and unpraised because of the scandalous paychecks they receive. In my travels around this country, I have discovered that America hates its teachers, and I could not tell you why. Charleston, West Virginia, is showing clear signs of really hurting theirs, and I would be cautious about the word getting out.”
Finally, I don’t understand why you go on about the nation’s flag, but here are a couple of examples of them in an art exhibition. I don’t really care if they violate some rules.
“Disasters of Wars”
A couple of Mark Twain quotes on the flag.
“And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one–our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.”
Also,
“I am not finding fault with this use of our flag; for in order not to seem eccentric I have swung around, now, and joined the nation in the conviction that nothing can sully a flag. I was not properly reared, and the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts, lest it suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to the Phillippines to float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so. But I stand corrected. I conceded and acknowledge that it was only the government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way. For our flag could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it is different with the administration.”
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