Ecology of Education

Corporate America has given us Big Banks (banks too big to fail) & Big Pharma (a pharmaceutical industry too big to fight). Coming soon to a school near you, courtesy of corporate America: Big Ed

In 2005, I damn near quit teaching. I was disgusted by so much of what traditional school does to people. I was tired of assigning homework and then nagging kids to do it – and even when they did do it, they simply went through the motions, hating every minute of it. I was tired [...]

This post was originally written by myself, George Couros, on my blog, “The Principal of Change”, on April 24, 2010.  I am honored to have been asked to cross-post this to the Ecology of Education blog.  Hope you enjoy it! The term “master teacher” seems to get thrown around a lot, but is something that [...]

In his book The Dip, Seth Godin writes, “the problem with infinity is that there’s too much of it.” He ends up talking mostly about business and markets, but his point is not lost on education. The trouble with focusing on content as the primary role of education is that there is an infinite amount [...]

Yong Zhao’s recently released book Catching Up or Leading the Way is a must read for educators and policy makers who want to see where our current high stakes testing regimes will take us. Zhao does a masterful job of showing how China has long had an obsession with standardized testing.

I submitted 5 open-ended questions I thought lawmakers should ask teachers before crafting bills aimed at reforming education. The policymakers on the Education Policy Committee thought it was a great idea (especially after the stink teachers made about not being included in reform efforts in Florida).  However, in order to more easily quantify the responses, [...]

1986.  That was a big year for me.  I was 12, in sixth grade, liked Garfield, Opus the Penguin, was “going” with a boy named Kevin, liked Zingers and Corn-nuts, loved my class and my friends, and had suffered a pointed moment of tween angst when my mom made me wear a training bra to [...]

Today, a guest repost from Trudy Norton, from her site Mrs. Norton’s Blog. She wrote this insightful piece about a day/life of a public school teacher in response to FL Senator John Thrasher’s comments following Crist’s veto of his bill, SB6.  However, this piece speaks to all teachers, be they Floridians, Texans, Iowans, or humans. Response to [...]

My heart has been racing for educators over the last month. Even though I no longer take up residence in Florida, I literally experienced palpitations watching debate over Senate Bill 6 take place on the House floor. When considering the potential impact of what could result from passage of said legislation, my thoughts went immediately [...]

Critics of Gov. Charlie Crist’s veto of Sentate Bill 6 sensationalize it as “a real setback”, “putting the brakes on progress” & squandering of “an opportunity to improve teacher effectiveness.” Across the nation editorial boards have sounded in on the debate raging down here in Florida, including the Chicago Tribune, which headlined their ed as, “Status [...]

Once upon a time teachers assigned grades, and that was pretty much that. Oh, occasionally a kid would argue that a particular grade was unfair, or complain so loudly that parents or an administrator would get involved, but that was relatively rare. About a generation ago, acceptance of teacher judgment about the quality of student [...]

Here is my first go at a videocast. Inside of 5 minutes, I discuss why we need to abolish grading so that we can properly teach students good character education and collaboration skills. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCVfyETELcg

Below is a letter that 6 Florida Republican Legislators sent to Governor Crist today, urging him to veto SB 6. You can click on the link below the images to download a copy of the pdf yourself. Crist Veto SB 6 Letter Image: Veto2009

The numerous connections between businesses, political players, and the current brand of education reform makes for a conspiracy theorist’s candy shop. Unfortunately, its hard to chalk the such theories up to an overactive imagination once the relationships are exposed. I received the below response and link resources from a Florida parent/teacher/SB6 opponent concerning the myriad [...]

Everyone admits that we must do more for our children because in some respects we are failing them. In some respects they are not achieving the way they should so we must take the shoe off and challenge ourselves to walk differently…..

but I submit that we must listen and include experts, the professional educators and teachers as we walk.

This post was originally posted on www.joebower.org I was pleased to moderate #edchat for April 6. Our topic was: From an educator’s point of view, what should be cut from education budgets when times get tough? I have a problem with the whole idea of cutting education. I also have a problem with even discussing it. The problem is [...]

Legislative proponents of SB6 and HB7189 are listening to one main demographic: The Chamber of Commerce. The voices of teachers, parents, and administrators are falling on deaf ears. Why?