Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Yesterday I talked to my students about the value of doing science – asking questions, predicting, observing, describing, measuring, classifying, generalizing, inferring, communicating – and I told them that I never did science in school. Science, for me, was reading the textbook and answering questions at the end of the chapter. We practiced none of [...]
I don’t begrudge any teachers a little extra recognition. But the idea that it “will inspire and empower Alaska’s outstanding educators to use their expertise” is wrong. It won’t.
So I was very pleased this morning to see this in the paper:
Pearl Creek turns down state bonuses
By Robinson Duffy
rduffy@newsminer.com
Published August 24, 2007
The teachers and staff at [...]
After a week with my new group of sixth graders, I want to get a handle on the basics of what some theorists call emergence. Teachers call it classroom management, which deceptively implies foreseeable results. Like other complex systems, the classroom is self-organizing, marked by numerous connections and unplanned interactions. These things, it seems to [...]
…the universe has come to be seen as “relentlessly nonlinear.”-Davis and Sumara
Will Richardson’s recent posts about the future of schools and teachers leaves me an opening for a new “big idea” that I’ve been working on lately. I finished reading Complexity and Education, by Davis and Sumara, which has me thinking about complex [...]
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Before I became a homeowner I was a property owner. Beginning with a blank slate and building my own place has given me a large store of object lessons in starting from scratch. The first and most painful truth that I have to face any time I start something is the need to excavate – [...]
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.
-Yogi Berra
Education historian, Sherman Dorn has a new book, Accountability Frankenstein, in which he explores the roots of test-based school accountability. Listen to the preface here (mp3). He compares the testing movement to Frankenstein’s monster, calling it “an obscene marriage of technocracy and [...]
Responding to Chris Lehman’s post, All Children Can Learn, I share his questions. Chis asks,
…what is important for all students to know? What is more important — demonstrating recall or demonstrating problem-solving skills? Immediate ability or the ability to produce over time?
What are the schools we want? What are the schools we need? And how [...]
I wrote a post last summer about blogging and identity construction with a similar title. This one is a little bit more about the blog in-use, it’s construction and maintenance. This post was prompted by some questions that Eric Hoefler asked. Eric is getting ready to change focus and hit the road, and he’s thinking [...]
fish on board
Been kinda’ busy lately. The blog will get back in gear soon.
I still need to cut and stack several cords of firewood before school starts.
In case anyone cares to look at some historic photos, these help to show how I got the fish.
I’ve got about [...]
