Quote of the moment: Rousseau on education

April 29, 2007

Teachers, do you remember studying that Rousseau is one of the foundation writers in education theory? No, neither do I.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau on education

We are born weak, we need strength; helpless we need aid; foolish we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man’s estate, is the gift of education. Rousseau, most common portrait

This education comes from nature, from men or from things. The inner growth of our organs and faculties is the education of nature, the use we learn to make of our growth is the education of men, what we gain by our experience of our surroundings is the education of things

We are each taught by three masters. If their teaching conflicts, the scholar is ill-educated and will never be at peace with himself; if their teaching agrees, he goes straight to his goal, he lives at peace with himself, he is well-educated. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Education, History, Pedagogy | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Send me these kids, please

April 20, 2007

Lucky will be the teacher who gets the kids from The Living Classroom.  I wager they’ll be eagar to learn, and that they’ll set the pace in good behaviors and academic achievement in future classes — unless someone throttles it out of them later.

For now it’s a bunch carrying a lot of hope to some lucky teachers next year.  Check out this post, “All the Beauty We Can Find in Just One Day,” and this one, “My School.”

1 Comment | Classroom size, Creativity, Education, Education blogs, Leadership, Lesson plans, Pedagogy, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Celebrating April 19: Paul Revere, “shot heard ’round the world”

April 20, 2007

April 19. Does the date have significance? Paul Revere's ride, from Paul Revere House

Among other things, it is the date of the firing of the “shot heard ’round the world,” the first shots in the American Revolution. On April 19, 1775, American Minutemen stood to protect arsenals they had created at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, against seizure by the British Army then occupying Boston.

April is National Poetry Month. What have we done to celebrate poetry?

What have we done to properly acknowledge the key events of April 18 and 19, 1775?  Happily, poetry helps us out in history studies, or can do.

In contrast to my childhood, when we as students had poems to memorize weekly throughout our curriculum, modern students too often come to my classes seemingly unaware that rhyming and rhythm are used for anything other than celebrating materialist, establishment values obtained sub rosa. Poetry, to them, is mostly rhythm; but certainly not for polite company, and never for learning.

Poems slipped from our national curriculum, dropped away from our national consciousness.

And that is one small part of the reason that Aprils in the past two decades turned instead to memorials to violence, and fear that violence will break out again. We have allowed darker ideas to dominate April, and especially the days around April 19.

You and I have failed to properly commemorate the good, I fear. We have a duty to pass along these cultural icons, as touchstones to understanding America.

So, reclaim the high ground. Reclaim the high cultural ground.

Read a poem today. Plan to be sure to have the commemorative reading of “Paul Revere’s Ride” in your classes next April 18 or 19, and “The Concord Hymn” on April 19.

We must work to be sure our heritage of freedom is remembered, lest we condemn our students, our children and grandchildren to having to relearn these lessons of history, as Santayana warned.

Texts of the poems are below the fold, though you may be much better off to use the links and see those sites, the Paul Revere House, and the Minuteman National Historical Park.

Read the rest of this entry »

18 Comments | 1776, Accuracy, America's founding, Education, Famous Battles, Famous quotes, Heroes, History, Santayana's ghost, Teaching, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Up to our ears in carnivals

April 19, 2007

Weren’t we here just a few days ago?  In the last week, for sure.

The 115th Carnival of Education is up at DY/DAN.

Look for Fuji Bucks.  Look for selection processes for advanced classes.  A lot of very good stuff.

Image:  Horace Mann School, 1st Grade Class, 1923. 

Which Horace Mann?  Oh, Saline County, Illinois.  Seriously, how many Horace Mann Schools can there be in America?  Anyone have a clue?

1 Comment | Education, Education blogs, Education reform, Teaching, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Call for contributions: Fiesta de Tejas!

April 19, 2007

We have a couple of sterling contributions for the next Fiesta de Tejas!

More. We should have more submissions. Texas is a big state, with a lot of people, and a lot of entertaining history. We need more entries. Deadline for entries is end of day April 30, 2007 — I’m looking to publish on May 2.

You may e-mail entries to me at edarrellATsbcglobalDOTnet, or you can take advantage of the Blog Carnival entry form, which has the advantage that it makes copies to keep the thing going should I get hit by a speeding Indian Motorcycle on its way from Fort Worth to North Carolina. If you blog, too, please feel free to pass this call for submissions along to your readers.
Blog Carnival submission form - fiesta de tejas!

Last issue was the wildflower issue, but if you have photos of Texas wildflowers you would like to submit, please feel free to do that, too.

Pecan Tejas95a, from Texas A&M -- commercial since 1973 Pecan Tejas 95a, cultivar created at Texas A&M University in 1945, first fruited in 1949, released commercially in 1973.

Fiesta de Tejas! is a blog carnival celebrating Texas, Texas history and Texana. This blog focuses on education and social studies (though the focus wanders a bit sometimes). If you wonder whether a particular post might be useful to the Fiesta de Tejas!, simply ask whether you think more Texans ought to know about, especially Texas social studies teachers.

Whaddya know about Texas? Share it.

Leave a Comment » | Economics, Education, Education blogs, Education reform, Education spending, Fiesta de Tejas!, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, History blogs, Texas, Texas history, Texas Lege, Texas Music, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Water to the Arctic

April 19, 2007

It didn’t start out to be such an odd question. “How does water get to the Arctic Ocean,” the kid asked. I’d just dropped on them a warm-up noting the designation of a fifth ocean, the Southern Ocean. They were working on maps, some coloring them in. To some of the students, it was news that we have more than one ocean on the planet.

“Water seeks its own level,” I explained. “Rivers carry waters to the oceans.”

He was really confused. Puzzling over Canada especially, he was venting. I was stupid, and not getting his question. “How come rivers don’t flow north?” he asked.  Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Books, Education, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Lesson plans, Maps, Teaching, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Searching for origins of life in Yellowstone’s hot springs

April 17, 2007

A few hours ago I posted a notice on satellite studies of the uplifting of a part of the Yellowstone Caldera, and I suggested some (weak) links to how to use it in the classroom. In passing I noted that the volcanic rock site southwest of Yellowstone, the Craters of the Moon National Monument, had been used to show astronauts what the Moon would be like when they landed Apollo missions there.

Yellowstone and especially its volcanic features also provided dramatic insights to the origins of life on Earth, especially the rise of life in hot water. These findings advanced the science we now call astrobiology, or the search for life on other planets.

This evening I stumbled across an interesting feature: A full text of a classic 1978 book on thermophilic life in Yellowstone, explaining in greater detail the research conducted there and its significance in astrobiology and evolution. Thomas D. Brock’s book, Thermophilic microorganisms and life at high temperatures (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1978; 465 pages) is just sitting there, online, for anyone to read. Thermophilic microorganisms, book cover
In this book there is more real science to this one tiny facet of the study of the evolution of life than there is in the entirety of the intelligent design political movement.

I wonder what other gems there may be in that digital collection at the University of Wisconsin.

Below the fold: The frontispiece. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Books, Darwin, Education, Evolution, Geography - Physical, History, Intelligent Design, Natural history, On-line learning, Public libraries, Science, Space exploration | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Carnival catch-up

April 16, 2007

Uh-oh. Running behind.

One of the reasons I list various carnivals is to make sure I have a note of the good ones somewhere easy to find. Busy-ness in the last week just kept me away from the keyboard.

Carnivals you ought to check out:

Oekologie 4.1: Over at Behavioral Ecology. Lots on climate change, of course, and some very nice bird photos.

Carnival of the Godless at Neural Gourmet has a good run down of the Blog Against Theocracy, and complaints about it, too.

Carnival of the Liberals #36 is up at Truth in Politics. Well, that’s an obvious pairing. Free speech, the president and the Constitution, tyranny in the Middle East, and quite a bit more.

Carnival of Education #114 is back at The Education Wonks.  State legislatures may be wrapping up their sessions, but education issues are heating up.

Skeptics’ Circle #58 finds a hangout at Geek Counterpoint, with several posts that get at how we know what is true — good stuff for historians and economists to ponder.

This is as good a time as any to remind you that that Fiesta de Tejas! #2 is coming up on May 2 — deadline for  post nominations April 30.  You may e-mail entries to me (edarrellATsbcglobalDOTnet), or submit them at the Blog Carnival portal to the Fiesta.

Leave a Comment » | Curricula, Economics, Education, Education blogs, Education reform, Education spending, Fiesta de Tejas!, Free market economics, Free speech, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, History, History blogs, History video sources, Religious Freedom, School discipline, Science, Science and faith, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, Testing, Texas, Texas Lege, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the Moment: Abraham Maslow

April 9, 2007

Maslow leads a class, Brandeis University photo

Enlightened management is one way of taking religion seriously, profoundly, deeply, and earnestly. Of course, for those who define religion just as going to a particular building on Sunday and hearing a particular kind of formula repeated, this is all irrelevant. But for those who define religion not necessarily in terms of the supernatural, or ceremonies, or rituals, but in terms of deep concern with the problems of human beings, with the problems of ethics, of the future of man, then this kind of philosophy, translated into the work life, turns out to be very much like the new style of management and of organization.

– Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management, 1998; via Dave Smith’s MulliganStewBlog.com.

Image: Maslow leading class at Brandeis University; Brandeis University photo

Uncle Sam, blog against theocracy

Maslow’s theory of self-actualization is a favorite topic of teacher training programs, but unfortunately, a topic almost never addressed in educational administration nor by school boards doing their work. Too often in American education, religious freedom is regarded as freedom to pass judgment on the morals of others, rather than the freedom to educate children well. It is ironic that people who otherwise pay attention to Maslow do so little to manifest his theories in actual practice.

Leave a Comment » | Blog Against Theocracy, Business, Business Ethics, Education, Ethics, Leadership, Religious Freedom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the Moment: Johannes Kepler

April 6, 2007

Johannes KeplerSo long as the mother, Ignorance, lives, it is not safe for Science, the offspring, to divulge the hidden causes of things.

Johannes Kepler, Somnium, 1634

Image from Northern Astronomical Review, Winter ’05.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Have you spoken against intelligent design, or other dangerous superstition, today?

April 6, 2007

Imagine you live in Dallas, Texas, where it is generally assumed that one is Christian and that one attends church on Sunday, and Wednesday (so much so that school activities are not scheduled Wednesdays, because everyone is expected to be at church). Imagine that you teach science at a major Christian-affiliated institution in Dallas.

Now imagine that your institution is the site of a major conference extolling the virtues of superstition, specifically against a scientific theory that is the foundation and main supports for much of your work. Do you hunker down and hope no one notices, or do you speak up for science? Blog against theocracy logo, Statute of Liberty

20 professors at Southern Methodist University (SMU) signed an article on the opposite-editorial page of the Dallas Morning News, yesterday, calling out intelligent design and its advocates. (I mentioned it in this post, here.) They will most likely take a stand that there is no reason to “debate” intelligent design advocates, since the debate venue is stacked, the debate audience is stacked, and that intelligent design has not paid its dues to be admitted to the college of the sciences.

But I wish they would take a further stand: I wish the Christians among them would call on the advocates of intelligent design to repent, to stop asking people to turn away from science, to stop spreading false stories about science, to stop making false claims. Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments | Blog Against Theocracy, Education, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Religious Freedom, Science, Science and faith, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

History Carnival 51, from a different view

April 4, 2007

A Don’s Life hosts History Carnival 51, which is fun and informative if only because blog author Mary Beard offers a slightly different view of things, being several time zones and an ocean away from America.

This carnival features several entries related to the Battle of Thermopylae, especially surrounding the release of the Film “300,” and several entries pondering the history of slavery, coming just at the end of the commemoration of the end of slavery in the British Empire.  Both of these topics offer good material for enrichment for AP world history classes, and good information for anyone else wishing to avoid repeats of the errors of history.

1 Comment | Capturing history, Current History, Curricula, Education, Freedom - Political, History, History blogs, History museums, Video and film, War, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Oxymorons: Carnival of economics

April 3, 2007

It would be an oxymoron, were it a material carnival — but it’s a virtual carnival, right?

The Boring Made Dull hosts the XXXVIIth Carnival of Economics and Social Policy.

I’ve ignored economics a bit on this blog lately.  For you Texas high school economics teachers, the kids who need to pass economics have just realized they can graduate, and they’re going to get a little frantic thinking economics is hard and may stand in the way of their graduation march.  Perhaps you can find something in the carnival that will help you make the dismal science, less dismal for them.

For example, start with a good warm-up exercise that ought to fill one of the requirements on personal finance that is new this year:  10 Ways Retailers Make You Pay More.  It’s at the bottom of the carnival listings.  The others cover the housing bubble, health care, nutrition, philanthropy, and the Fed.  You’ll find something there you can use.

Leave a Comment » | Economics, Education, Freedom - Economic, Pedagogy, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Last call for Texas history carnival, Fiesta de Tejas!

March 31, 2007

Today’s the last day to nominate your post, or another’s post, for the inaugural (and we hope not last) Fiesta de Tejas! blog carnival of Texas history and other things Texan.

Texas relief map from geology.comSend the good stuff! You can send it through the Blog Carnival entry site for Fiesta de Tejas! (which is a good idea, since it saves copies), found here, or send it to me directly at edarrell AT sbcglobal DOT net.

Map image: Texas relief map from Geology.com

Leave a Comment » | Education, Education blogs, Education reform, Education spending, Fiesta de Tejas!, Fiesta Texana!, History, History blogs, History museums, Lesson plans, Texas, Texas history, Texas Lege, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Carnivals! Education, liberals . . .

March 30, 2007

Ecole des Beaux-Arts

. . . what’s the difference?

The Education Wonks host Education Carnival 112.

Lots of carnivalia at Framed: Discourse & Democracy, with Carnival of the Liberals #35.

And, while we’re at it, one of my favorite blogs hosts the 57th Skeptic’s Circle, at Aardvarchaeology. It’s well worth a browse. Brain learning, how do we tell what’s accurate, etc.

Photo: Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris

1 Comment | Education, Education blogs, Education reform, Education spending, Politics, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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