January 31, 2007
Median Sib hosts the 104th Carnival of Education. If you’re not reading these regularly, you’re missing a lot in education. Even more useful is checking out the blogs the selected posts come from. This week’s posts include pieces on science education in Florida, the misfiring of the intended incentive pay to Houston Independent School District teachers, standards under NCLB, and more.
And, as EduWonks suggests, one might learn more by perusing the 57th Carnival of Homeschooling at PalmTree Pundit — a couple of good geography teaching posts there.
It’s like this internet thingy is some information highway or something.
Image: Gateway to Boston Latin School, probably the oldest operating public school in America. Ben Franklin’s schooling was obtained at this school (probably in an earlier building!)
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 19, 2007
Freedom Writers arrives at local movie screens this weekend, putting another hero teacher out there as a model, teaching us all that even poor, tough kids from troubled schools can achieve great things, if only someone will take the time to get through to them some important lessons about life.
Frankly my dear, we don’t need another hero teacher.
But I’m not the first to think that. Bronx 10th-grade history teacher Tom Moore wrote an opposite-editorial page piece published today in the New York Times — Friday, January 19, 2007 (free subscription required, and free probably only for a week).
He writes:
While no one believes that hospitals are really like “ER” or that doctors are anything like “House,” no one blames doctors for the failure of the health care system. From No Child Left Behind to City Hall, teachers are accused of being incompetent and underqualified, while their appeals for better and safer workplaces are systematically ignored.
Every day teachers are blamed for what the system they’re just a part of doesn’t provide: safe, adequately staffed schools with the highest expectations for all students. But that’s not something one maverick teacher, no matter how idealistic, perky or self-sacrificing, can accomplish.
He’s right. Go read it. (Still working out solutions for middle schools . . . perhaps this weekend.)
Tip of the old scrub brush to reader R. Becker.
Freedom Writers Foundation home page here.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 12, 2007
Little Rock’s Central High School, portrayed in a postcard (courtesy of Curt Teich Postcard Archives and the University of Arkansas Libraries)
Just a postcard to remind you that the 101st Carnival of Education is up over at I Thought a Think. There is a new Congress; many state legislatures are gearing up. It’s a good time to discuss education policy. Perhaps more to the point, if we don’t contribute to the discussion now, policy changes will go on without our contribution. Read the posts, and take action.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 5, 2007
One of its architects, Seymour Papert, lies in a Boston hospital (but out of intensive care) recovering from a head injury suffered in a collision with a motorbike in Hanoi in early December, but the idea of equipping tens of millions of students around the world with inexpensive, wireless-ready laptop computers continues to roll towards implementation.
The Christian Science Monitor carries an editorial more full of hope than opinion, on January 5, 2007, about the computer project. The laptops have been dubbed “XO.”
For billions of parents who earn only a few dollars a day, paying for a child’s education – books, etc. – often gets neglected. Many simple solutions that break that cycle of poverty have been tried and have failed. Now another one is on the horizon: a “$100 laptop.”
While noting past errors in sending technology to the third world, the Monitor cites some numbers from implementation that are quite dramatic, if accurate: Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 4, 2007
Not in years — but the 100th Carnival of Education is up over at Teaching in the Twenty-first Century.
What is that in scientific notation? In binary?
- The Howard School, a one-room schoolhouse in Oregon’s Ochocos Mountains area, about 30 miles east of Prineville, Oregon. The school appears to be abandoned, an Oregon Ghost. Photo by Bruce Johnson, who holds the copyright. Used by permission. (More great photos of Oregon available at http://www.OregonPhotos.com).
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 28, 2006
The No Child Left Behind Act is scheduled for renewal by 2008, but observers are saying it will not come so soon because of the national elections. The Act will face significant phalanx of people and organizations demanding changes, too.
Media General’s Gil Klein produced a general piece of reporting on the politics and issues for NCLB renewal, which started appearing in U.S. newspapers on December 22.
It has shaken every teacher in every classroom, and when the No Child Left Behind law comes up for renewal next year, it faces a political battle that could last until after the 2008 election.
“We did a survey of Washington insiders and it is almost unanimous that it won’t happen until 2009, regardless of what all the politicians are saying,” said Michael Petrilli, an education analyst with the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, who worked in the Education Department when the law passed.
[There is a lot of good reporting out of Washington by regional news agencies and smaller services, like Media General, Knight-Ridder (used to be a bigger player than today), and other groups. Bloggers would do well to bring some of these reports to the attention of the world, instead of relying on the New YorkTimes, Washington Post, and major broadcast outlets. This is a case of a smaller agency simply providing a solid story ahead of the curve.] Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 28, 2006
Brief note from MIT’s Media Lab:
Wednesday, December 27
While still in Intensive Care, Seymour is making progress every day. He has opened his eyes and sees the people around him, but has not yet spoken. He is also able to move his arms, legs, and head. His doctors hope that he will be able to be moved out of Intensive Care soon, but for now, is still not receiving visitors.
Earlier coverage, noting his December 7 collision with a motorbike in Hanoi, here.
One may still leave an electronic flower for a get-well bouquet to be delivered to Papert.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 26, 2006
MIT’s Media Laboratory says they will post updates as they get them. As of today, Dr. Papert is resting in Massachusetts General Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU), taking no visitors, and still in a coma.
Meanwhile, there is also an electronic get-well card you may sign.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 26, 2006
How did I find KnowHR? I don’t remember now. I do remember that it featured a very interesting post on presentations, one of the areas of pet peeves of mine, especially as they related to bad PowerPoint presentations offered to teachers for use in the classroom — or worse, offered by teachers in the classroom.
We corresponded briefly on turning-point “presentations” in history (Go see, here, here, and here).
“HR” in that blog’s title stands for “human resources,” I’m guessing — they lean toward corporate human resources issues. That’s a long way from history and teaching history, for some people. Sadly, it’s a long way for many administrators and other leaders who could use some HR tips about how to get history taught better . . . but I digress.
KnowHR recently featured a “z-list.” It’s a list of blogs that you probably ought to look at from time to time, high quality blogs with material you can use — but blogs you won’t get to in the normal course of your business. It was tagged with a meme: Pass the list along, and add a couple of other very worthy blogs at the end. I’m passing it along, below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 16, 2006
I’m a bit surprised. Chester Finn, president of the Fordham Foundation, recommends we read and take seriously the recommendations of the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce. I had thought he’d be a lot more skeptical a lot earlier.
Which means a couple of things: One, we ought to read and take seriously the report, as Finn urges; two, Finn continues to think originally about problems of education, and can’t be pigeon-holed into positions that he personally finds difficult to defend on the evidence, or into positions that others “think” he ought to have.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 9, 2006
Details here, at Andy Carvin’s Waste of Bandwidth.
Seymour Papert is one of those Renaissance people whose very existence seems to brighten the world, and in this case, the world of education. He has made significant contributions to thinking about the use of computers in education, including the famous $100 laptop ideas.
Hope and/or pray for the best.
Other sources:
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 9, 2006
It’s just good economics to think that raising the pay of teachers will improve the overall ability of the teaching corps, knowing that higher pay attracts higher-qualified workers in other situations.
Now comes a study from Australia making the same point. Two researchers at the Australian National University’s Center for Economic Policy Research looked at changes in the quality of education over time, and concluded one change for the worse was pay for teachers and a resulting decline in quality of teachers. Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan write:
For an individual with the potential to earn a wage at the 90th percentile of the distribution, a non-teaching occupation looked much more attractive in the 2000s than it did in the 1980s. We believe that both the fall in average teacher pay, and the rise in pay differentials in non-teaching occupations are responsible for the decline in the academic aptitude of new teachers over the past two decades.
Is that a surprise? U.S. Education Sec. Bill Bennett used to tout his “$50,000 solution” to improve schools — get a good principal. That action generally would improve the support for teachers and improve things across the school. Today, the amounts are higher, and the need is greater after more than three decades of economic starvation of public schools.
Raising teacher pay is a good market solution to improve the achievement of students.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Andrew Leigh’s blog.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 3, 2006
Almost inevitably I want a map different from those provided by the text and all my ancillary and auxilliary sources. It’s maddening for a non-cartographer. So, I can see uses for custom map-making tools.
You can figure out what to do with this, if you have a computer and access to project it to a class — or if you send your class out on the ‘net to work: Maplib.
Tip of the old scrub brush to If:book. Be sure to check there for examples.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
November 26, 2006
Superstar historians rare get recognized on the street. The BBC’s use of historians, even natural history professors, however, has made a few stars in Britain. Neil Oliver is one of the latest, dubbed “The Naked Historian” for reasons I haven’t figured yet.
The Sunday Times has a profile on November 26:
Neil Oliver is draped languidly over a sofa in Glasgow’s Millennium Hotel. He is fully clothed and only doing the photographer’s bidding, but it is easy to see why the presenter of the hit series Coast has been dubbed the Naked Historian.
It’s not just a surname he shares with television’s sexiest chef. Both were “discovered” by screen queen Pat Llewellyn, of Optomen Television, and both exude that unquantifiable essence that can be detected only through the lens of a camera.
It’s partly enthusiasm, partly a lack of self-consciousness and partly hair. You could bet your last tub of Brylcreem that a bald Jamie Oliver, Alan Titchmarsh or Gordon Ramsay would be unable to command their multi-million-pound fees. Neil Oliver’s Jacobite locks — stereotypical among his fellow archeologists — give him an instant recognition factor on television.
It’s not all fluff; Oliver gets down to talking history and the importance of studying history:
Oliver, 39, says Scots’ knowledge of their history is generational, with people over 40 being the most well-informed. But most of them were taught in a system that favoured British and world history. The resurgence of Scottish history in schools is a recent phenomenon. So why are young people so ill-informed? It may be they have lost sight of the bigger picture as history is taught in modules without an overview.
Oliver, whose perspective goes back to the Palaeolithic, is concerned about this. “If you have a generation without that broad framework, it fundamentally changes how things are viewed,” he says. “History affects the way you understand the world. People who don’t have that education drummed into them become dislocated.”
Could such a thing happen in America, could historians become media stars? Historians can dream about a future, too.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
November 3, 2006
Blog post compilations known as “carnivals” continue to proliferate.
I stumbled into this one: 15th Teaching Carnival. It’s hosted this time by New Kid on the Hallway.
Among other ways it differs from education carnivals, it has a distinct focus on grading and other details of teaching life, this time.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 