Ecology of Education

With well over 60% of Americans supporting spending cuts at a federal level and budget cuts becoming one of the key issues in the Presidential election, it stands to reason that fiscal responsibility will be a top priority, regardless of who is elected in November.  If Obama wins, there will be massive pressure from the [...]

Social media has already revolutionized the college campus. Social media is far more than a slick website, to aid students in finding an online school, it includes all of the various forms of connection made possible by the internet, often with a heavy dose of user created material. Today, social media has grown so important, [...]

IF you listen to too much of the rhetoric about school reform these days, you may be led to believe that schooling is about achievement, first and foremost. However, for those on the ground floor, achievement is a byproduct of something more profound and simple — Learning. Life long learning. For most educators it is [...]

In Larry Cuban’s recent blog post Jazz, Basketball, and Teacher Decision-Making, he serves up two excellent analogies to help readers understand the complex nature of teaching.  In the midst of a jazz improvisation or a sporting event, an individual makes one decision after another, each one a reaction to the moment.  On one level, that might [...]

Even amid the heated debates & discourse, my inner Pollyanna still dream’s big. Here’s my blue sky, if I had my way: 1. United Teachers They become a force to be reckoned with. Politicians, news outlets, and policy makers take notice and make room at the table. They ask teachers questions like, “What can we [...]

I remember the first day I walked into my first classroom, and I stood there for the longest time looking at 30 empty desks, empty bulletin boards and an empty chalk board, and I was terrified. I was excited. With tears welling in my eyes, I was so full of emotion. There would be voices [...]

Laurence J. Peter once said, There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience. I love this quote.  Simple, humorous, and a rather large kernel of truth. Here on Thursday Round-up (in which students and I reflect on and write about something we’ve learned this week), [...]

Last summer I had the opportunity to hear Lorraine Monroe speak at an institute I was attending at Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Principal Center.  With decades of experiences in education, she embodied a commitment to success that was both fierce and unwavering, yet simple in its tenets. She offered one liner after one liner, [...]

So what is it that we want students to gain from a k-12 science education? What are the goals we should constantly work to promote in students? Considering that rote memorization of scientific ideas leads to little understanding, I have identified ten goals for students that focus on life learning skills, and other traits that [...]

Created by Dr. Michael Wesch through Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University.  Kind of makes me wonder what we should be preparing students for.

I’ve been spending a lot of time the last two weeks looking up articles on Sage Publication’s website (by the way, you can peruse their journals for free until April 30th). I’ve been pouring through articles on a variety of topics: gifted, ADHD, alternative assessments, teacher retention, pre-service teacher education…etc. I’ve been doing this with [...]

My great dream is that this economic downturn (since we’re in it anyway) will prove to be a transformative agent for our nation’s schools (remember, Lance Armstrong’s transformation was partly due to how the lean times as he fought to survive made him a more agile athlete). However, I think such a fantasy might be [...]