Millions of students across the world miss educations they should be getting, due to war, famine, weather or poverty.
ICRC caption: In the town of Kodok, South Sudan, a boy stands in a shuttered school, where classes have been closed for months after fighting intensified in the area. Photo: Jason Straziuso/ICRC
What are the odds this boy will, within a few years, take up a gun to fight in a war, instead of finishing his education?
What can we do about it?
1 Comment | 
Africa, Classroom technology, Education, War | Tagged: Classrooms, Education, South Sudan, War | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
From the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross):
Red Cross caption: No books, no chairs, no safe place to learn: This is a classroom in #Yemen where 2 million children are out of school according to @UNICEF.
Two things essential for a classroom: Student, and teacher.
Ponder that next time your local school board denies raises to teachers. And remember this classroom in Yemen, where students want to learn, and a teacher goes into hell to let them do that.
More:
Leave a Comment » | Classroom management, Classroom technology, Education, Teachers, War | Tagged: Classroom, Education, Teachers, War, Yemen | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
How do others outside the U.S. go to school?
Foreign Affairs featured a gallery of photos of a school in Syria, in a zone of war. School is still important. Students attend class in a cave, offering some protection from some bombs.
Internally displaced children attend a class inside a cave in the rebel-controlled village of Tramla, in Idlib province, Syria, March 27, 2016. Photo by Khalil Ashawi; Foreign Affairs photo and caption
Learning the Hard Way in Syria
In the rebel-controlled village of Tramla, in Syria’s Idlib province, the dusty stone steps to the town’s only primary school lead down to a damp cave. In February, a strike on two schools and five hospitals in Idlib province left 50 dead, many of whom were children. Before that, in April 2014, barrel bombs killed 25 students at a school in opposition-held Douma near Aleppo. This has forced Syria’s teachers to turn trailers, poultry farms, and other unusual terrains into classrooms in the war-torn country where more than two million children remain out of school.
More photos at Foreign Affairs; go look.
1 Comment | Classroom management, Classroom technology, Education, War | Tagged: Classroom technology, Classrooms, Education, Syria, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Mary McGlasson teaches economics at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Arizona.
She makes videos for use in class, and out of class, and by others, on key economic concepts. I’ve used her videos in economics with great results.
Recently she was recognized with a teaching excellence award; she wrote: “The kind folks at the League for Innovations at the Community College asked each Roueche Award recipient to create a 1-minute video, so here it is. Mine’s a bit of a fail, because it’s 1:25… hope they like it anyway!”
Good on Mary McGlasson.
You want to see the real stuff? It’s all there on McGlasson’s YouTube channel. Here are a couple of examples.
Scarcity and Choice
Resources
Congratulations to Mary McGlasson — and thanks! Economics teachers, go see what she’s got.
Can you do better? Can you adopt these methods for different subjects? Please try.
1 Comment | Classroom technology, Economics, Education, Teaching, Video and film | Tagged: Classroom technology, Economics, Education, Mary McGlasson, Teaching, video | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
In education we miss out on most information technological innovation. Textbooks were notoriously dull when books were the chief medium found in schools. Schools took 60 years to make progress in showing film. Television, which started out commercially as a great education tool — what was arguably the best orchestra in the U.S. used to play every Sunday on NBC way back when. Then video, then computers, then the internet and personal data devices penetrated modern life, but not yet schools.
So I am always pleased to hear after Christmas break the questions high school economics and history students came back to class with, especially after “having to watch” that hoary and venerable old movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Frank Capra’s film cuts through the fog on some important history and economics issues.
Not that you find it used much in U.S. schools. What follows is a blog post I did for my U.S. history blog some years back, to answer some of those student questions.
George Bailey (played by actor Jimmy Stewart) works to deal with a run on the Bailey Savings & Loan Association in Bedford Falls, New York — a classic “run on the bank” — in the 1946 movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” by Frank Capra. Image from Warner Bros., via Our Values blog.
Whenever we get to the Great Depression, somebody asks about bank runs. What is a “run on the bank?” Why would people suddenly rush to get their cash out of the bank? And why can’t the bank just pay it out?
Frank Capra showed and explained it best, probably, in his 1946 film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” But first, my weak attempt:
Banks don’t keep all the money deposited there in the vault. Banks make money by loaning out to others the money put on deposit. The people who get the loans must pay interest on the loan, and that allows the bank to pay interest on the deposits people put there (precious little today — my first account paid 5.25% on my first $5.00 deposit; today you’re lucky to get 1%, and you have to have a sizable minimum, generally. But I digress . . .).
So, if you and a hundred other people each deposit $100 in the bank, the bank turns around and loans out as much as they can. Of the $10,000 deposited, say, they loan out $9,000 to the guy who lives next door to you, so he can put an addition on his house. He’ll pay it back, with interest.
But, that loan means that there is only $1,000 left in the vault. Generally a 10% “reserve” will cover all the cash transactions a bank makes in a day. That is, if they have 10% of their total assets sitting in the vault, making no new money for them, it is highly unlikely that in a normal day there will be a demand for more than about $1,000 of that $10,000 on deposit. (The actual reserve amounts vary; last time I looked, several months ago, the Federal Reserve Board required member banks to hold about 7% of their total assets in cash on hand.)
You can begin to see why a bank run is a problem. If, in one day, every depositor showed up and demanded their deposit, the bank couldn’t pay them all. This is a death sentence in the banking world, for a bank to be unable to meet obligations, and generally that would mean that the bank would be out of business. But of course, that’s rather unfair to the bank — they have their money (your money, really) loaned out to dozens of other people. When those loans come in, the bank will have the cash to pay.
A run on the bank puts a kink in those careful, conservative calculations of how much cash a bank needs to have on hand to cover all the transactions of a day.
Banks fear a run. That’s what killed banks in 1932 and 1933, in the last year of the Hoover administration. Even a good bank could be doomed by an unjustified run — no bank could repay all of its depositors, in cash, on any one day.
Roosevelt’s bank holiday, just a week after his inauguration, stopped the runs for that week. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured deposits, so that even were there a run on a bank, a depositor could get his or her money back. Those measures essentially stopped runs on banks for decades.
Frank Capra’s 1946 movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” tells the story of a man who manages a small town savings and loan association, which is similar to a bank in that it accepts deposits and loans money, but different from a bank in that it is chartered for the benefit of its depositors, or members, and not for a bank corporation. In fact, the antagonist in the film is the town banker, Potter, who does what he can to bring the savings and loan to ruin.
In one memorable scene, a rumor that the savings and loan is about to fail prompts dozens of the members to make a run — indeed, there is also a run on the bank at the same time. Jimmy Stewart explains to the members why he can’t pay everybody . . . but he also has an infusion of $2,000 cash he plans to cash for his honeymoon. This is what a bank run looks like, with a smart banker (savings and loan manager in this case) who can keep his organization going:
This film clip is undoubtedly copyrighted by the current owners of the film’s intellectual property. I wish they would make it available for classroom use without heavy copyright fees, in the interest of the public.
It’s another case of a fictional film portraying history better than any history book, and economics, too. Licensing the film for classroom use costs more than teachers can pay — plus, in the dog-eat-teachers world of the War on Education, few administrators stand the use of fiction in history and economics classes. That’s before a teacher even gets to the issue of whether there is technical support to show the film.
6 Comments | Classroom technology, Economics, Education, Financial literacy, Great Depression, History, Video and film | Tagged: "It's a Wonderful Life, Bank Holiday, Bank Run, Classroom technology, Economics, Education, film, History, Run on the Bank | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Photo from Heidi Totten, who is spearheading a campaign to get desks for schools like this one in Kenya:
Tenkees School, in the Mau region of Kenya. Photo by Heidi Totten
Ms. Totten, working with a group called 100 Humanitarians (Entrepreneurs Changing the World), posted this in November, for a November 27 fundraising project.
Our next $5 Friday Fundraiser will be for additional desks for this school in the Mau region of Kenya. This is a very remote area that we visited. The school serves over 300 students with very few desks that they cram into.
They also have two latrines for each gender. With 300 kids you can imagine the sanitary conditions.
* * * * *
Our hope is to start with adding more desks, then rebuilding the kitchen and adding latrines. Just $5 can go far!
Please feel free to click over to this group and contribute.
How well would you or your kids learn in this school?
More:
3 Comments | Africa, Classroom management, Classroom technology, Education, Travel | Tagged: Classroom technology, Classrooms, Education, Kenya, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
This is much an encore post from a couple of years ago.
Wise man Alfie Kohn Tweeted a photo of this list by Bill Ferriter. I’d blogged about it before.
It’s still solid, and most school administrators still miss the point. Teachers get sent to courses to “learn to do a PowerPoint,” but rarely can anyone leading those courses tell when to use a PowerPoint, or Keynote, and when a simple list on a chalkboard/whiteboard is more effective, or perhaps when having students copy a list would be more effective, or when students making a poem/song/poster of a point would be more effective.
An international law firm recently directed that it’s army of a couple thousand lawyers would, henceforth, use Prezi instead of PowerPoint. Nevermind that the lawyers hadn’t mastered PowerPoint and don’t have a clue what to do with Prezi: Some “managing co-partner” was taken in by the swoops of Prezi. More than four years ago I learned Prezi at a technology course for technologies my district later decided not to support (money, use, lack of internet connections, etc., etc. — I suspected a lack of planning and thinking about how technology could be used). In the course, I asked the instructor how to tell when to use Prezi instead of PowerPoint — and how to embed YouTube videos for classroom use of a Prezi. After working for too long, we decided we couldn’t figure out how to embed videos, and so PowerPoint might be more useful. Then the instructor confessed he didn’t know how to embed videos in PowerPoint, either.
Let alone, when does a video work better than other instructional methods? Long or short? Notes, quiz, or oral feedback?
Many Texas districts struggle to teach “keyboarding” to students who have difficulty printing notes, letter by letter, because they don’t know cursive writing (and therefore, cannot read their teachers’ comments on their written work).
Is “integrating technology” really the problem?
Anyway, here’s Mr. Ferriter’s list, a checklist to tell whether you’re getting close to actually using technology, or whether you’re just ringing the bells and tooting the whistles of machines on the desks.
Cheat Sheet: What do you want kids to do with technology? By Bill Ferriter The Tempered Radical blog.williamferriter.com @plugusin
_________________________________
|
What do you want kids to do with technology? |
|
| Wrong answers | Right answers |
| · Make Prezis | · Raise awareness |
| · Start blogs | · Start conversations |
| · Create Wordles | · Find answers |
| · Publish Animotos | · (Answers to THEIR questions) |
| · Design flipcharts | · Join partners |
| · Post to EdModo | · Make a difference |
| · Use Whiteboard | · Take action |
| · Develop apps | · Drive change |
|
Technology is a tool, |
|
_________________________________
“Technology is a tool, not a learning outcome,” Bill Ferriter says. He’s right, of course.
Tip of the old scrub brush to April Niemela @AprilJNiemela.
Alfie Kohn’s Tweet:
More, generally:
Yes, this is mostly an encore post. Fighting ignorance requires patience.
1 Comment | Alfie Kohn, Classroom technology, Education, Learning, Student Achievement, Technology | Tagged: Alfie Kohn, Classroom, Education, Learning, Students, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You had a clean, well-lighted nook somewhere in the house to do your homework, and you thought it was tough?
Some kids don’t even have that, but seem to have such a burning desire to get their homework done, to get an education, to get a better life, that a badly-lighted, uncomfortable homework nook won’t stop them.
Did you see this kid doing his homework?
This little boy studying outside of a McDonald’s has the Internet buzzing. (Photo: Joyce Gilos Torrefranca/Facebook) Two photos of a boy doing his homework under the light of a McDonald’s in the Philippines have gone viral and inspired an outpouring of donations and support for the third-grader’s struggling family.
Joyce Gilos Torrefranca, a student in Mandaue City, spotted the young boy recently and says the significance of the moment struck her. “For me as a student, it just hit me a lot, like big time,“ she told ABS-CBN News. “I seldom go to coffee shops to study. And then this kid, he doesn’t have anything but he has dedication to study.”
Torrefranca posted the photos to Facebook on June 23 with the caption, “I got inspired by a kid.” Her post was promptly shared more than 7,000 times. In the photos, which were taken in Cebu City, 9-year-old Daniel Cabrera is kneeling on the ground, resting his homework on a wooden stool.
You can’t help but respect the kid. Nor can you help but feel sorry for him in his homework situation. When the photo caught the eye of the public, help poured in .
After the photo made the rounds on social media, local organizations, including a welfare agency, reached out to support the family, according to ABS-CBS. Local police officers gave the family groceries and some cash, sponsors are chipping in to provide Espinosa with the capital to start her own business, and Daniel got a scholarship grant from a local politician.
And that grant should come in handy for Daniel, who has years of studying ahead of him. He told local radio station dzMM that he wants to be a police officer when he grows up.
On Facebook, Torrefranca acknowledged that the photo had taken on a life of its own. “I didn’t think that a simple photo can make a huge difference,” she wrote on June 27. “Thank you guys for sharing the photo. With that, we were able to help Daniel in reaching his dreams. I hope Daniel’s story will continue touching our hearts so that we will always be inspired and motivated in every situation we face in life.”
What are the excuses your students give for not having their homework done?
Have they met Daniel Cabrera?
1 Comment | Classroom technology, Education, Homework, Life, Parents, Teachers | Tagged: Classroom, Education, Homework, Life, Parenting | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Maasai school in Tanzania. Photo by Noel Feans, “We rule the school.” September 2009; Creative Commons copyright, Wikimedia image; also on Flickr
Another photo illustrating classroom technology in different cultures.
4 Comments | Africa, Classroom technology, Education, Travel | Tagged: Africa, Classroom technology, Education, Maasai, Tanzania, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
A few miles from the New Mexico border, in Chromo, Colorado:
East of Durango, along U.S. Highway 160 84, a school building with a sign suggesting it was built in 1895. The map said it was Chromo, Colorado. Photos by Ed Darrell; use with attribution is encouraged.
Difficult to tell how many rooms; it could have had up to four classrooms at one point, I reckon. The belfry is still there, but the bell is long gone — a prize for some scavenger if it was not removed for re-use, or for a museum.
Bigger windows that many modern schools, windows students could use to actually look outdoors. Modern school architects seem to want students to be unaffected by the outdoors, or light from outdoors, often.
Off in a field by itself, there was plenty of room for kids to run around, at recess.
In this photo the sign is legible: “State of Colorado 1895 Approved Standard School.”
Was this a standard design, or does “standard school” refer to the program of instruction offered?
There were a few homes and farms close by. The community has always been small. How many students learned to read, learned how to handle numbers, read the greats of American history and literature in these walls? Who were they, and where did they go?
How big a mark can a school, or a teacher, actually make?
More:
5 Comments | Classroom technology, Education, History | Tagged: Chromo, Classroom technology, Colorado school building 1895, Education, History, John Little, One-room School | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Getty images. A young boy at the blackboard of a school in Gaza, August 2014. Via BBC.
Gaza got bombed 97 years ago when the British seized it, in World War I.
In the 21st century, things have not changed enough for the people who live in the area.
It’s even worse in Gaza than it was for the West Bank earlier.
3 Comments | Civil Rights, Classroom technology, Education, History, History images, Human Rights, Israel | Tagged: Civil Rights, Classroom technology, Education, Gaza Strip, History, Human Rights, Israel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
But, really: See what some students put up with, just to learn?
http://twitter.com/IntThings/status/374463839657803776
We usually had enough chairs in Dallas. Usually.
Those kids don’t have any.
Leave a Comment » | Classroom management, Classroom technology, Education, Learning, Student Life, Teaching Resources | Tagged: Classroom technology, Education, Learning, Students | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Cheat Sheet: What do you want kids to do with technology? By Bill Ferriter The Tempered Radical blog.williamferriter.com @plugusin
“Technology is a tool, not a learning outcome,” Bill Ferriter says. He’s right, of course.
Tip of the old scrub brush to April Niemela @AprilJNiemela.
More, generally:
3 Comments | Classroom technology, Education, Learning, Student Achievement, Technology | Tagged: Classroom, Education, Learning, Students, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Try the blogs listed at Teach.com, Teach Make A Difference, in their ranking of teaching blogs. 
I’m fascinated at the great teacher resource blogs I don’t see listed; one of the criteria for listing is that at least 50% of the posts must deal with education.
Consequently, it tends to be pedantically-oriented towards classroom technique, with a great diminution of education management and especially policy and politics, which are greater problems in education today, for my money (and lack of money, too).
You will find a lot of useful stuff there.
Was I right? Lots of useful stuff?
2 Comments | Classroom management, Classroom technology, Education, Education blogs, Teachers, Teaching | Tagged: blogs, Classroom management, Education, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Another video from super teacher CGPGrey, right up our Texas alley, on the issue of Texas secession:
Minor error: No provision I can find in any Texas Constitution to allow Texas to split. Language to allow a territory to split into as many as five states was pretty standard for new U.S. territories organized during the 19th century; but that didn’t carry over to the Texas Constitution approved by Congress, not in a unilateral way. One needs to recall that when Texas entered the Union, it carried with it lands that eventually became parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and Wyoming — which was part of the scruff with Mexico, which led to the U.S.-Mexico war of 1846 to 1848.
Still a teacher from another state demonstrates a much clearer conception of Texas history and state and federal law than some of the nutcases in Texas. That so many Texans hold so many false perceptions of law and Texas history is an indictment of Texas education, and Texas’s governor and legislature.
You also should check out:
And, while we’re thinking about it, did you ever comment on the Digital Aristotle concept, which first introduced this blog to Mr. Grey?
More:
2 Comments | Classroom technology, Education, History, Politics, Teaching, Texas, Texas history, Video and film | Tagged: classroom video, Education, History, Politics, Secession, Teaching, Texas, Texas history, Video and film | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 