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We Are the Present: Why Youth Voices Are Necessary

2012-01-27T16:57:08+00:00

What if we started looking at youth as full participants in their communities right now, rather than thinking that they'll fully bloom into something else?

When we pretend that children are just adults in hatching, waiting to become real participants in the world, we don(tm)t merely take away their agency and lose out on their wisdom; we deny that they are already full participants in the world, on the front lines of the most critical struggles in modern history.

Evaluating Our Values

2012-01-27T16:53:21+00:00

IDEA Community Organizer Corey Graber is a new resident teacher in training in Baltimore, MD. Read about his take on values in the classroom.

Articles are written every year bemoaning the fact that young Americans are woefully ignorant about civics. Here’s a radical theory to consider: Young people don’t know civics because we don’t teach them civics! We made a decision in that moment with those twelve boys that practice with writing a brief constructed response was of higher value than becoming competent, prepared, participatory citizens. Does that decision mesh with your own values?

What will happen to education in 2012?

2012-01-05T17:08:35+00:00

PBS NewsHour Correspondent John Merrow notes his predictions for US public education in 2012, including Blending Learning and whole school evaluation measures. Is this where we're headed?

What can we expect in the world of public education in 2012? (For a good review of what happened in 2011, check out this link.) I’ll start by considering three nagging questions.

1. Will this be the year that some school districts say ‘No mas!” to No Child Left Behind’s harsh rules?

2. Will we have that long-awaited national conversation about the goals of public education?

3. And will political leaders rise up against the excesses of for-profit education, so effectively documented in the New York Times (December 13, 2011), where we learned that the school superintendent of one for-profit charter chain that enrolls 94,000 students is paid $5,000,000 a year? (By contrast, Dennis Walcott, who is responsible for over one million New York City public school students, earns $213,000 a year.)

That’s What We Do in Pre-K

2011-12-26T18:27:28+00:00

Eloquent essay by pre-school teacher Tom Hobson, on life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness--and our responsibilities to our fellow citizens. Democratic education at its finest.

I do know that responsibilities are not things into which one is commanded or shamed, rewarded or punished: that’s called obedience. Responsibility emerges only from the unalienable right to pursue happiness. I am the parent of a teenager now, not legally an adult, but no longer a child. I’ve noticed that the more rights she assumes, the more responsibly she behaves. That’s what we do in a democracy.

Gender Bullying in the Classroom

2011-12-21T18:59:14+00:00

Classrooms across the country continue to divide into boys and girls. What happens when your classroom gains a gender variant student? This classroom turned itself inside out so that students might ask thoughtful questions of themselves and make their class a more welcoming space, regardless of gender.

Allison was biologically a girl but felt more comfortable wearing Tony Hawk long-sleeved T-shirts, baggy jeans, and black tennis shoes. Her parents were accepting and supportive. Her mother braided her hair in cornrows because Allie thought it made her look like Will Smith(tm)s son, Trey, in the remake of The Karate Kid. She preferred to be called Allie. The first day of school, children who hadn•€(tm)t been in Allie(tm)s class in kindergarten referred to her as •he.”

The Independent Project

2011-12-15T17:47:22+00:00

Here's a way that traditional high schools--without expending more money--can transform and personalize student education. The video tells the story, the white paper provides a template.

The Independent Project is an alternative student driven school-within-a-school that was started at Monument Mountain Regional High School by a student. Research by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi on engagement suggested that if students have more control over what they are learning, they will be more engaged,
excited, and committed to their studies.

The Best and Worst Education News of 2011

2011-12-13T22:25:56+00:00

Veteran teacher-blogger Larry Ferlazzo shares his nominations for most promising and most discouraging education stories of the year.

Here’s my humble attempt to identify the best and the worst education news that occurred during the past 12 months. I hope you’ll take time to share your own choices in the comment section.

I’ll list the ones I think are the best first, followed by the worst. However, it’s too hard to rank them within those categories, so I’m not listing them in any order.

Herczog: Social Studies education is key to preparing our next generation

2011-12-12T15:25:57+00:00

Michelle M. Herczog, member of the Board of Directors of the National Council for the Social Studies, champions social studeies as the key to preparing every citizen to meet the challenges of our modern world. Do you agree?

The Arab Spring, Climate Change, Occupy Wall Street, Race to the White House, and the Super Committee. Real challenges in today’s world require great thinkers, innovative problem solvers and engaged citizens of a global community. How do we prepare the next generation to address these complex challenges?

The answer lies with Social Studies education.

Principals Protest Role of Testing in Evaluations

2011-12-07T01:37:08+00:00

Principals have long been known as enforcers who rubber stamp the whims of bureaucrats, but that may all be changing.

Through the years there have been many bitter teacher strikes and too many student protests to count. But a principals’ revolt?

Principals don’t revolt, said Bernard Kaplan of Great Neck North High School on Long Island, who has been one for 20 years. “Principals want to go along with the system and do what they’re told.”

But President Obama and his signature education program, Race to the Top, along with John B. King Jr., the New York State commissioner of education, deserve credit for spurring what is believed to be the first principals’ revolt in history.

As of last night, 658 principals around the state had signed a letter •€” 488 of them from Long Island, where the insurrection began ” protesting the use of students’ test scores to evaluate teachers’ and principals’ performance.

Mindsight—-and Education

2011-12-06T17:14:16+00:00

We are part of an interconnected whole--and the brain is a social organ. So--we have totally revamp education.

Dr. Daniel Siegel explores the neural mechanisms beneath social and emotional intelligence and how these can be cultivated through reflective practices that focus on the inner nature of the mind. The necessity of three new “Rs” in education—reflection, relationships and resilience.