by Casey Hurley
February 19th, 2012 — Book Thoughts, Media Reviews, Teacher Reads, The Emperor's New Clothes
PBS asked this question about PS 1 in New York City.
At the end, according to the transcript:
JOHN MERROW: So, what do you think? Is PS-1 a good school or a bad school? You may have already made up your mind, but the people who make decisions about budgets, about who gets hired, who gets fired, they rely on test scores.
This is our default definition of “educated.”
February 3rd, 2012 — Book Thoughts, Cut the Crap, Media Reviews, Teacher Reads
Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick believe schools should teach 16 habits of mind.
In their words:
January 14th, 2012 — Book Thoughts, Media Reviews
“The Benefits of Failure” is the headline for an Education Week blog suggesting we teach young people to learn from failure. You don’t have to read it. Just teach the six virtues.
Or you could follow the blog’s suggestions without teaching understanding, imagination, strong character, courage, humility and generosity. But then students wouldn’t learn how to benefit from failure. How could they?
January 9th, 2012 — Book Thoughts, Cut the Crap, Media Reviews, Teacher Reads
Education Week (online, January 6, 2012):
Popular Frameworks Found to Identify Effective Teachers
Descriptor:
For this study, the researchers broadened the list of outcomes slightly to include a measure of student effort and emotional engagement. Students taught by the teachers studied reported, for instance, on whether they pushed themselves to understand lessons in the class, and whether they felt happy in class.
Who doesn’t already know that teachers whose students “pushed themselves to understand lessons,” and “felt happy in class” will get better results than teachers with students who did not push themselves to understand lessons and who were not happy in class?
October 26th, 2011 — Book Thoughts, Cut the Crap, Media Reviews, Teacher Reads, The Six-Virtue Definition is Useful
Scholarly Crap:
Here is another recommendation for what we should teach in public schools, complete with complicated qualifications:
From the article:
So, instead of defining high school success solely in terms of mastering a common, college-preparatory curriculum, we should develop a broader and more individualized measure of high school success where students achieve a sense of competency by demonstrating mastery in an area that most interests them—whether it is math, physics, cooking, mechanics, or sports—while achieving acceptable proficiency in core academic areas.
Educators should teach young people “math, physics, cooking, mechanics, or sports” and core academics. Is this a new idea? How many of these do we pump out each year? How is that working?
September 24th, 2011 — Book Thoughts, Cut the Crap, Media Reviews, Teacher Reads
Psychology Crap
Several years ago I read Howard Gardner’s The Disciplined Mind; and I thought, “Truth, beauty and goodness are ideals, not virtues. This is an incredibly ironic book title.”
Those thoughts returned when I read Gardner’s recent response to critics:
September 20th, 2011 — Book Thoughts, Media Reviews, Politics Blogs
I am troubled by Ron Suskind’s description of the Obama White House during the economic crisis of 2009:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/15/tim-geithner-ignored-obama-order_n_965404.html
He paints a not-too-pretty picture of the White House in those days. We were confronting an economic disaster. Getting elected president does not make one expert in all the things Americans care about. Any president would have had to rely on the advice of financial experts.
August 6th, 2011 — Book Thoughts, Cut the Crap, Media Reviews, Teacher Reads
The Washington Post headline reads, “Evaluation of DC Teachers is a Delicate Conversation:”
The article is about a teacher who wanted to know why a “master educator” evaluator gave him a low grade on his math lesson:
Master Educator: This does not measure your effort . . . But I do see your effort . . .
Math Teacher: So — what is this measuring?
Master Educator: It’s measuring the effectiveness of that effort . . .
Really?
July 19th, 2011 — Book Thoughts, Gates blogs, Media Reviews, Teacher Reads
Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat, 2005) quotes Bill Gates as saying this about “open-sourcing” and innovation:
You need capitalism [to drive innovation.] To have [a movement] that says innovation does not deserve an economic reward is contrary to where the world is going. When I talk to the Chinese, they dream of starting a company. They are not thinking, ‘I will be a barber during the day and do free software at night.’ . . . When you have a security crisis in your software system, you don’t want to say, ‘Where is the guy at the barbershop?’ (p. 101)
Are these the words of a visionary? Do they assume and promote the best about human nature, or the worst?
July 19th, 2011 — Book Thoughts, Cut the Crap, Gates blogs, Media Reviews, Teacher Reads
Bill Gates Metaphor Crap
In his interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates presents three metaphors for teaching.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703858404576214593545938506.html?mod=dist_smartbrief
Q: Do you think it is possible for school districts to build great teachers?
A: Absolutely. But the amount of research into what great teachers do has been so slow that you can’t make huge improvements in the average….Even professions like long-jump or tackling people on a football field or hitting a baseball, the average ability is so much higher today because there’s this great feedback system, measurement system.
