'borderland' Category
None of the Above
Dave Gross…Every time you are confronted with choices and, instead of playing one of society’s designated roles, you choose “none of the above” and find yourself alone in a nameless category — you score a point for our team. He says that he looks at social roles the way that hackers look at network [...]
Carry it on
Listening to Utah Phillips, I heard the voice of a teacher.
From Democracy Now [transcript]:
AMY GOODMAN: …Over the span of nearly four decades, Utah Phillips worked in what he referred to as “the Trade,” performing tirelessly for audiences in large and small cities throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. His songs were performed by Emmylou [...]Classroom Teaching
Margaret Edson is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, and kindergarten teacher, working in the Atlanta Public School System. She delivered the Smith College Commencement Address on May 18, 2008.
Margaret Edson’s words are an important reminder of the value of something that can not be counted - the power of a teacher’s presence in our [...]Class Not Dismissed
It’s been a week since school let out for the summer, and I’ve been been thinking about what happened in the classroom this year. Decompression - it happens every May. Long bike rides are key: 30 miles yesterday, 20 today, 50 miles tomorrow, if it doesn’t look too much like rain. Two-lane country blacktop with [...]
Putting it Together
It’s the last day of school, the kids are gone for the summer, and I’m writing a little book review here. This book was not recommended to me. I found it almost by accident at the library when I was there on an errand. It was written nearly 60 years ago, and the fact that [...]
Intelligence Training
People tend to think of intelligence as a static quality, something that some people have more of than others. Yet we know that our brains are developed through experience, by stimulating neuronal connections. Yet, all experience isn’t equally valuable. And some experiences may even inhibit intellectual growth. Our goal as teachers should be to stimulate [...]
The Mountains are High
The Forum for Education and Democracy released a report last week, Democracy at Risk: The Need for a New Federal Role in Education [pdf], to commemorate the release of the landmark A Nation at Risk report, issued 25 years ago by the Reagan administration. A Nation at Risk claimed that “the educational foundations of our [...]
E18 Error Report
The last three weeks (time since my previous post) have been more or less an extended insult. I don’t know if things are improving or not at the moment. It snowed throughout the month of April - right up to yesterday, when we got yet another 2 inches of slop. Throw in some agonizing and [...]
Word of Mouth
Seems like I spend half my time in the classroom keeping the noise level down, and the rest of the time getting someone besides the regulars to speak up. This post is about the talking part of student presentations, and helping kids to develop an actual public speaking voice. I discovered last week, by accident, [...]
When Worlds Don’t Collide
Once upon a time I looked forward to seeing mainline literacy journals take an interest in blogging. So, it was good to see an article in this month’s Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy on using of blogs for literature study, Weblogs and Literary Response: Socially Situated Identities and Hybrid Social Languages in English Class [...]
