Skipping School NOT Waiting for Superman : Main/Home Page The Bartleby Project On Monday, Add Your Voice One theme of this blog over the past several months has been concern that the conversation on public education does not reflect that the reality of most public schools. It reflects the spin of mainstream and talk show media, political figures and business celebrities. Educator and parent voices are often left out of conversations on the state – and future – of our nation’s schools. Others share this concern. On that day, give thanks for educational successes, share your ideas for real reform or describe an educational community that makes a difference for contemporary learners. Other potential topics include: Can we fire our way to success? Once you have written a blog post, you can add it to the collective voice in a couple of ways. 1) Post it on the Educator’s PLN at - Create a profile- Add your post to the “Blog Post” panel on the right sidebar (or create a post linking back to your own blog) 2) Drop ASCD your link on Twitter @ASCD_Inservice Happy Blogging!
7 Must-Read Books on Education Education is something we’re deeply passionate about, but the fact remains that today’s dominant formal education model is a broken system based on antiquated paradigms. While much has been said and written about education reform over the past couple of years, the issue and the public discourse around it are hardly new phenomena. Today, we round up the most compelling and visionary reading on reinventing education from the past century. Earlier this year, we featured a fantastic Bill Moyers archival interview with Isaac Asimov, in which the iconic author and futurist echoes some of own beliefs in the power of curiosity-driven, self-directed learning and the need to implement creativity in education from the onset. Sir Ken Robinson’s blockbuster TED talks have become modern cerebral folklore, and for good reason — his insights on education and creativity, neatly delivered in punchy, soundbite-ready packages, are today’s loudest, most succinct rally cry for a much-needed revolution.
Neil Postman Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 – October 5, 2003) was an American author, media theorist and cultural critic, who is best known by the general public for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death. For more than forty years, he was associated with New York University. Postman was a humanist, who believed that "new technology can never substitute for human values". Biography[edit] Postman was born to a Jewish family in New York City, where he would spent most of his life.[1] In 1953, he graduated from State University of New York at Fredonia where he played basketball.[2][3] At Teachers College, Columbia University he was awarded a master's degree in 1955 and an Ed.D in 1958.[2] In 1959, he began teaching at New York University (NYU).[2] He died of lung cancer in Flushing, Queens on October 5, 2003.[2] Works[edit] Amusing Ourselves to Death[edit] Amusing Ourselves to Death was translated into eight languages and sold 200,000 copies worldwide. Informing Ourselves to Death[edit]
Free to Learn: A Radical Experiment in Education (2006 Free to Learn is a 70 minute documentary that offers a “fly on the wall” perspective of the daily happenings at The Free School in Albany, New York. Like many of today’s radical and democratic schools, The Free School expects children to decide for themselves how to spend their days. The Free School, however, is unique in that it transcends obstacles that prevent similar schools from reaching a economically and racially diverse range of students and operates in the heart of an inner-city neighborhood. For over thirty years in perhaps the most radical experiment in American education, this small inner-city alternative school has offered its students complete freedom over their learning. There are no mandatory classes, no grades, tests, or homework, and rules are generally avoided. As a last resort, rules are created democratically by students and teachers, often at the prompting of a student. Arrange a Screening & Contact Filmmakers: freeschooldoc@gmail.com educationrevolution.org/?
The Trouble with Boys: Crisis and Success in Education - Technorati Family A lot of eyes are on boys these days. Slackers, rebels, drop-outs. Think I'm stereo-typing? Not according to statistics hauled out last month by the Globe and Mail, one of Canada's top newspapers, in their six-part series, Failing Boys. “They earn lower grades overall in elementary school and high school,” wrote journalist Carolyn Abraham. Sound dismal? One of the problems is that boys simply have different needs than girls and those needs aren't being met. The advantage of an all-boys environment is that teachers can cater to the differing needs of boys. Remember those days? But some schools deal effectively with the increased energy of boys - without promoting pharmaceuticals or simply slapping down a ban. St. Hopefully, educators and parents can learn from their example and do what it takes to let boys be boys and get ahead in school - in both public and private environments.
Derek’s Mission | Magical Teaching This all began when I arrived at my portable classroom on the edge of campus ready to change the world with my magical teaching. I did my best to document the experience, keeping a slapdash journal on my laptop and writing notes on MasterCard junk mail, overdraft notices from the bank, and membership petitions from my college alumni association. Twelve years later, Mr. LouAnne Johnson, the wonderful woman behind Dangerous Minds, likes it! Ironically, I struggled with situating my story among “magical teaching” stories like Johnson’s. Maybe, I thought, I could do something to change that. This site is my attempt to make sense of what happened yesterday and years ago, to work with others to reshape the myth in some small way. This is real magical teaching. Derek Like this: Like Loading...
The Enigma of Public Schools - Short Summary - Fourth Purpose Films THE FOURTH PURPOSE The enigma of modern compulsory schooling Education is the bedrock of any democracy. The issues of equity, justice, even homeland security, require a population that can think for itself, reason, critique, and analyze. Why, in the richest, most powerful nation on earth are we not able to address this issue clearly and effectively? Perhaps it is because we analyze the problems of our school system in terms of engineering solutions—longer school days, Phonics vs. The Fourth Purpose, a 3-part, 6-hour documentary series will be the first film to ask this fundamental question. Working with author and former New York State Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, award-winning film director, Roland Legiardi-Laura has designed a 3-part structure built on solid research and a commitment to the material, which has the integrity commensurate with the epic scope of the material. Part One: What’s Wrong? How Did It Get This Way? Part Three: What Else is Possible?
The Benefits of a Classical Education Since the end of the Second World War, and especially since the mid-1960s, America has been deluged with seemingly endless stories of the failure of its educational system. Testing reveals that there exists a significant percentage of high-school graduates who cannot identify the Pacific Ocean on an unlabeled map of the world, who do not know that Abraham Lincoln served as president of the United States after George Washington, who confuse the American Civil War with World War I, and who believe that Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in the 18th century, which examples are typical of the horror stories repeated year after year. Ever fewer young people, even those who have graduated from colleges and universities, are properly able to express themselves verbally or in writing. In response, liberal educators have come up with various nostrums that were supposed to turn things around by means of revolutionary new teaching methods. Not surprisingly, they have all failed.
'The End of Education' by Neil Postman :: A Book Review by Scott London In The End of Education, Neil Postman returns to a question he has explored on and off since he began his career as an elementary school teacher: education. It's a topic that has dominated the cultural debate in America, with varying degrees of intensity, for the better part of the twentieth century. You would think that everything that could be said on the subject would have been said well enough by now. But no. Every year a new spate of books appears tackling the same old themes: diversity in the classroom, the pros and cons of various teaching methods, declining standards, core curricula, violence in our schools, etc. But Postman sidesteps these issues and takes a broader view. The "school problem" has two dimensions, as he sees it. For education to be meaningful, Postman contends, young people, their parents, and their teachers must have a common narrative. Postman's most compelling argument, in my view, revolves around what he takes to be the "false gods" of modern education.
5 Education Hacks - Get Educated For Free ← Love My Life Right Now How To Get A Degree Education, Learn A New Language, Teach Your Children Calculus, and Read Thousands of Books for Free Long gone are the days of Encarta Thesaurus and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia has all but obliterated the need for a hard copy of any information. The Internet has changed the face of education and the new generation are going through school with an unprecedented amount of information at their fingertips. There are so many reasons NOT to study such as: Price, Location and Time. No matter what you want to learn, there will be a source on the internet. 1. A degree education isn’t available to everyone for many reasons. Coursera: Coursera has partnered with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. 2. The Khan academy was started by donations and is now significantly backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Google (See this video featuring Bill Gates). 3. 4. TED holds three yearly conferences. 5.