Why is the grass green? Why is the sky blue? Do fish drink water? Why don’t dogs talk? And so on, and so on, ad infinitum. If you’ve ever spent time around children you know that as they get older the questions only get more complex. If you’re feeling stuck at home, and aren’t we … Continue reading
Tag Archives: education
Thinking about Social and Emotional Learning
I’ve been thinking about going back to school, as I’m sure every teacher and parent and student has been, and the ways that being out of school for several months and then spending the summer being pretty limited as to what you can do will impact our children during the coming year. We still don’t … Continue reading
Thinking about Gender
Why does that trope get so much play? Do we really think every person born female is just waiting to bust out of her shell and be a beautiful fully done up woman? Do we think those of us who have decided not to do that are missing out? What about those of us who transitioned? Or refuse to pick a gender with which to define ourselves? Continue reading
Pay no attention to the Great and Powerful Ed Reform behind the curtain…it’s not as magical as we’ve been led to believe
There have been several articles from a variety of sources in the past month about how ‘the newest things’ in education, which have been held up as the perfect solution for the last few years, are starting to fray around the edges and some are even crashing in on themselves. The New Orleans school system … Continue reading
Professional Development in Schools and the Rise of the Paid Expert
Let’s Re-Learn How to Read for the Common Core is a recent article by Stephen Chiger for Huffington Post’s online education page. In the article he apologizes to one of his old professors for not reading deeply enough and talks about how he recently participated in a class that made him feel “like an intellectual and … Continue reading
testing…it’s only funny in comics
Obviously I cannot take credit for this comic (or any of the other ones), it has been all over the web for at least a year or two but I see it more often at this time of year, probably because testing season has begun. As yes, Spring is here, the snow is starting to … Continue reading
Alphabet Soup…the Mulligan Stew Version
I have been thinking about educating students who speak English as a second language in the framework of my own family history and the history of immigration in the United States. Since St. Patrick’s Day just recently passed I can safely assume that at some point last weekend there was someone nearby wearing a lei … Continue reading
The alphabet soup of working with students whose first language is not English…or what ESL, ELL, ESOL, EAP, EAL, EFL, ELT, ESOL, TESL, TEFL, and TESOL mean
These labels are an alphabet soup of confusing mixed messages that makes the debate about how to best educate children who are learning or speaking English as a second language confusing and difficult to follow. Is a child labeled ESL or ELL? Do we have a certification in TESL or TESOL? Or does it matter … Continue reading
As I was following the Twitter feed of the ASCD13 Conference attendees today I got a link to this post. It was so closely tied to my thoughts last week when I started writing here I had to reblog it. I have an ongoing argument (mostly in my head for what I assume are obvious … Continue reading
Got this from a Facebook friend
Thinking about what we do and don’t teach made this video that I got from a Facebook friend an interesting thing to watch. What do you think the jobs of tomorrow are? I know that one of the things I find most unfortunate is the way that many of the schools in the poorest districts are unable … Continue reading
Time To Stop and Think 