IDEA Blog

Drop Down Thinking

Yesterday afternoon, I had a conversation with a rather pleasant woman named June about our nation's current population of youth, and the ways in which our youth seems to process thoughts. June provoked the conversation after we had discussed that I study philosophy at ASU.

She began by mentioning that there seem to be many people, especially today's younger population, who seem to lack any notion of a creative way of thinking. That is, she recognized that many kids nowadays are being taught what to think, as opposed to how to think, which seems to be giving rise to a population of people who seem to struggle when problem solving alone, and sometimes even in groups. I was very excited that...

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Goals met?

The last meeting of the year is just winding down, the walls of the classroom are bare, and there is not a single piece of paper on the floor. It is officially time to start summer, at least for me.

My official evaluation was a week ago. I have my copy of it around here somewhere.... Anyway, things went wonderfully according to my vice principal. She was very happy with my performance. That is good, because I need to keep my job. She is happy, and my family has health insurance. My goals for the administration were met.

I do recall that I set different goals for myself, than I turned in for the powers that be. I wrote about my goals in my first post for IDEA. Let's see how I did....


1. ...

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Good Teachers or a Good Education

In this post Jonah deconstructs the teacher tenure debate and calls for a change in the way we think about stand out teachers.

Hi Jonah, I have a question about the teacher tenure debate. I am currently in college and when thinking (back) to my high school experience, two types of teachers stand out in my mind. The first were the teachers that worked really hard, they were often young, inspired and inspiring. I liked being in their classes and I felt like they really taught me things. Then there were the teachers who had become disillusioned with teaching decades ago, used the same lesson plans year after year and seemed to show up just so that they could collect their check. Isn't it...

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Another major language

Spanish, like every other major language, is indeed a crazy quilt of various dialects as there are
countries, regions, and cities where Spanish is spoken. If so, why do we still have all of the academic research in education, and its literature, referring Spanish to us as a “minority language”?

As many agree, education research findings, and the American population at large, should begin
interacting more to further necessary critical awareness if we are to make it out of
the dualistic grip of “reformers” versus “those-who-oppose-this-reform” talking heads (cf. Dana
Bennis' “The Education Policy Debate”), who add more confusion instead of resolution to our dire public schools, and...

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Because I’m a part of it

School has been out for a weekend now and as soon as the last bell of the school year rang, a couple of my friends and some of my students got right to work on our presentation for the U.S. Social Forum. Our presentation is called "Urban School Awakening: Critical Elements of Urban School Reform."

For our workshop, I've invited several students to help facilitate the break-out session of our presentation. I selected students who over the years have demonstrated the product of true liberating education. And what's the litmus test? I am getting wind that these students are getting in trouble in other classes for speaking up for themselves.

This is music to my ears because as our...

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Nuestra Escuela: A School with a Mission of Love

Click on any photo to see its caption.

Love. It’s not a word you hear very often in professional settings. In discussions of education, “accountability” and “achievement” are far more common. It’s as if people are afraid to lose credibility by saying the word “love,” even if it’s what they know, deep down, that children need.

Justo Mendez and Ana Yris Guzman, the founders of Nuestra Escuela (“Our School”) in Puerto Rico, don’t pay this social convention any mind. They will tell you within the first five minutes of meeting you that Nuestra Escuela, the “Center of Sustainable Support for Young People and Their Families,” is based on love. They know that no matter how many resources they...

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10 Reasons to Unschool

There are so many different philosophies of education in the world to choose from. It's a rich, diverse world, so it's only natural that there are so many different ways to learn and grow. It's a shame, however, that most of these paths toward learning are concealed from the majority of people. If asked what education means, most people cite the public school method; and though others might also toss in private or homeschooling, there are still so many variations out there that go unnoticed, or even unheard of.

If made aware of all of the different options available to them, I believe that many parents would not choose to send their children into public schools as they are currently...

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Is Chaos a Bad Thing?

I am teaching two summer classes this year (my "summer vacation, ahhhh" was actually just for one week!) and in one of them we have been talking a lot lately about free schools. Of the 18 students in my class, I would say that about 75 percent of them reacted extremely negatively to the idea that kids should have freedom to learn what they wish, how they wish, and when they wish. Now, my students are definitely not in favor of our current conventional, very constrained system of education, but they seemed pretty appalled by the level of freedom that kids have at places like Summerhill, the Albany Free School, and the Sudbury Valley School. The most oft-cited opposition to these schools...

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In Defense of Unschooling

Lately, there has been a surge of questions, comments, and in many cases, diatribes against unschooling. Most of these have been spawned from two very brief, very biased (in many peoples' opinions), news-oriented television programs--not from actual research completed on unschooling itself. In response to so much misunderstanding and heated--even hateful, in many cases--commentary, I decided to write out my own defense of unschooling.

My family and I are not technically unschoolers. I'm very attracted to the word and what it means, and we do "unschool" in some ways, but we still prefer to use some Waldorf curriculum in our life. That works for us. Different methods work for different...

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What’s up with June anyway?

Question: According to the calendar there are still two and a half weeks of school left, but according to my students school ended the second the temperature in my classroom reached 90 degrees two weeks ago. I'm usually a laid back teacher who has a very good relationship with her students but at the end of the year they start bouncing off the wall and reverting to behaviors they haven't shown in months. Is there anything I can do about this or should I just suck it up and pray that nothing goes terribly wrong over the next two weeks?

- Anonymous Middle School Teacher


Endings are hard. They might be the hardest thing to do well. Don't believe me? Go watch a movie. How many times have...

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