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Monthly Archives: May 2007

Teaching the Controversy

Friday, May 25, 2007

Deborah Meier, in a recent blog post advocated for what I’ll call a responsive curriculum, saying that The best education I ever had was over the dining room table, as adults talked politics and culture (and how they dealt with the daily realities) in the presence of the young and with due respect for their [...]

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Data

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

I’m done. The school year is over. Yesterday was the day to put grade reports and test results in envelopes, to update permanent records, to put away everything in the classroom and turn in keys. It was a full day. Sweet misery. I hate administrative chores, and I stall out following tangents that most people [...]

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How is ‘conflict of interest’ so hard to understand?

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Via Schools Matter, a link to this NYT editorial, Putting More Profit Before Education (quoted in full): Published: May 19, 2007 The United States Department of Education has been rightfully drawn (but not yet quartered) in Congress for failing to prevent the kickbacks, payoffs and self-dealing recently uncovered in the student loan business. Now it [...]

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Pull and Push

Sunday, May 20, 2007

The last day of school was Friday, and I’m scrambling now to bring together all the administrative loose ends that need to be cleaned up before the final contract day. Every year on the last day of school just before the final dismissal, we have a tug-of-war contest with the outgoing sixth-grade class. We faced [...]

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A Political Voice

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A 10 year-old girl in my class asked me last week if she could publish an anti-war comment. I said, Sure. Just realize that everyone might not agree with you. We live in a town with an Army post, and a lot of people from here have been deployed. She went ahead and wrote her [...]

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Politicizing Media

Friday, May 11, 2007

My blog reading habits took a political turn after I started reading Tom Hoffman’s shared feeds. I now have a folder in my reader that’s bursting every day, because as we know, one feed leads to more. One of my new favorites is David Sirota’s blog on WorkingForChange. Sirota, according to Newsweek, is a Man [...]

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new blog skin

Sunday, May 6, 2007

I’ve got a new blog skin running now. Looks OK to me, but I’m wondering if it works in other browsers, etc. Last time I tried this it didn’t run right for some folks. If there’s any usability problem, please let me know.

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And tonight we still remembered

Sunday, May 6, 2007

I left this as a comment on Michel Duffy’s site, Duffy Writes. A story that Michael tells on his blog, and which he posted as a comment to a recent post here, reminded me of something from Ordinary Wolves, a book I can’t recommend highly enough for people who like to think about these things. [...]

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Greenup – now

Saturday, May 5, 2007

Greenup in the subarctic is when the forest canopy bursts into leaf. In a few short hours, the hillsides become a sea of green. And because summer lasts only a few short months, we don’t take any of it for granted. With just 10 school days remaining this year, seasonal changes are coming strong. So, [...]

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Choosing a life

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

I’ve been (and still am for a few more hours) away from home in the desert visiting my mom. Traveling Outside from Alaska is always a mild shock. The flood of people in the Seattle airport is the first jolt. And from that point on, I’m out of place, feeling a bit alienated and strange [...]

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