Noam Chomsky Spells Out the Purpose of Education

E + ducere: “To lead or draw out.” The etymological Latin roots of “education.” According to a former Jesuit professor of mine, the fundamental sense of the word is to draw others out of “darkness,” into a “more magnanimous view” (he’d say, his arms spread wide). As inspirational as this speech was to a seminar group of budding higher educators, it failed to specify the means by which this might be done, or the reason. Lacking a Jesuit sense of mission, I had to figure out for myself what the “darkness” was, what to lead people towards, and why. It turned out to be simpler than I thought, in some respects, since I concluded that it wasn’t my job to decide these things, but rather to present points of view, a collection of methods—an intellectual toolkit, so to speak—and an enthusiastic model. What is the difference between education and indoctrination? First, Chomsky defines his view of education in an Enlightenment sense, in which the “highest goal in life is to inquire and create.

KQED education We Need A Higher Minumum Wage Are American workers in need of a raise? Last week, students across the country debated about whether or not the minimum wage should be increased in our #DoNowWages post. We asked students What is an appropriate minimum wage for where you live? In other words, what is the basic amount of pay per hour that a worker in your city would need to earn in order to make ends meet? Continue Reading A Visualization of How The Drought is Impacting California’s Reservoirs California is home to a number of reservoirs and dams that provide water and power to surrounding cities and farms. Continue Reading What Happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370? About a month ago a Malaysian Airplane mysteriously disappeared. Continue Reading Selfies Are Okay, But Don’t Take Too Many Love them or hate them, selfies have become one of the most common ways people express themselves on social media. Continue Reading At Adobe Books with Chris Johanson Continue Reading Continue Reading

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: 23 Excellent Professional Development Tools for Teachers Today we are sharing with you some web tools to help you grow professionally. These are probably the best you can ever find online. Check out the list below and share with us your suggestions and additions. This is a work in progress. Enjoy 1- Education World This is a great website that offers all the resources you need to grow professionally. 2- Classroom2.0 In this networking group, you can get connected with other educators who are interested in Web 2.0, social media, and more in the classroom. 3- Diigo Collect, highlight, remember, and share all of the great resources you find online with your PLN on Diigo, and annotation and online bookmarking tool. 4- Discovery Education There is no way that you did not hear about this awesome website. 5- Google Rss With Google Reader or any other great RSS tool, you can subscribe to blogs and stay on top of it all. 6- Twitter 7- Staff Develop 9- Ed Week Ed Week is a also one of the leading websites in education. 11- Educators Professional Development

Blog | Erin Stead Illustration | Caldecott Medal Winner for A Sick Day for Amos McGee From the Cluttered Desk of Philip Stead (with Erin sitting close by): Before we begin I would like to tell you a little story. Last October Erin and I were asked to give a talk at the Nashville Book Festival. Public speaking has a way of agitating our already naturally nervous energies and so, after the presentation, we decided to take a walk around town, hoping eventually to stumble on a nice place to eat lunch. There were long waits at every place we passed and it wasn’t long before we were too hungry and too tired to keep searching. We ended up knee deep in an hour long wait for a table at a restaurant with a less than promising menu. Also, it was loud. The Contributor is a paper written and distributed primarily by Nashville’s homeless and formerly homeless population. Unrelated Side Note: My local free form radio station, WCBN, once played Hotel California continuously during Pledge Week until someone called in with a pledge of $100 to make it stop. This is what I read: truck driver