As a result, we’ve wasted 15 years avoiding incremental improvement, and instead trying to upend a reasonably successful school system.
But the reason it hasn’t narrowed is that your profession has done too good a job — you’ve improved white children’s performance as well, so the score gap persists, but at a higher level for all.
Policymakers, pundits, and politicians ignore these gains; they conclude that you, educators, have been incompetent because the test score gap hasn’t much narrowed.
If you believe public education deserves greater support, as I do, you will have to boast about your accomplishments, because voters are more likely to aid a successful institution than a collapsing one.
In short, underemployment of parents is not only an economic crisis — it is an educational crisis. You cannot ignore it and be good educators.
equally important educational goals — citizenship, character, appreciation of the arts and music, physical fitness and health, and knowledge of history, the sciences, and literature.
If you have high expectations, your students can succeed regardless of parents’ economic circumstances.
That is nonsense.
health insurance; children are less likely to get routine and preventive care that middle class children take for granted
If they can’t see because they don’t get glasses to correct vision difficulties, high expectations can’t teach them to read.
Because education has become so politicized, with policy made by those with preconceptions of failure and little understanding of the educational process, you are entering a field that has become obsessed with evaluating only results that are easy to measure, rather than those that are most important. But as Albert Einstein once said, not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.
To be good educators, you must step up your activity not only in the classroom, but as citizens. You must speak up in the public arena, challenging those policymakers who will accuse you only of making excuses when you speak the truth that children who are hungry, mobile, and stressed, cannot learn as easily as those who are comfortable.
An important read for anyone who truly wants to understand what's really important in education and the false reform strategies of our current (and past) administration.
This is an amazing, beautifully made and entertaining site for young children to learn phonic sounds. Design a monster and take it on an adventure around a magic area to find the letter sounds and fix a spaceship. The storyline is good and the activities are educational and motivational.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English
Combining top quality games design with essential learning, the game is built on the principles of synthetic phonics and follows the teaching sequence of the Letters and Sounds. Teachers can setup account and give access to students.
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
"Lexile measures are powerful, versatile tools that educators can use to help their students grow as readers. When you use both Lexile reader measures and Lexile text measures, you can treat each student as an individual learner, rather than as below-grade, on-grade or above-grade. Site includes a "find a book" feature which allows you to search a book by title or author and find out the lexile level. There is a conversion chart on the site which will give you a guide to the approximate grade level equivalents as well.
Here are some classroom ideas and applications to help you differentiate instruction for all readers in various situations."
Employers and business leaders need people who can think for themselves -- who can take initiative and be the solution to problems. They need people who can build trust and get along with others, and solve complex challenges in teams without much supervision.
"Partnerships between schools and parents in educating the whole child, which includes developing both the character strength and the competencies required to really succeed in the 21st Century."
A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People -- a set of universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society, organization, or family. I take no credit for these principles. I simply organized, sequenced and articulated them. These principles include 1) taking personal responsibility and initiative, 2) getting clear about what's important to you and setting goals, 3) putting those priorities first and being disciplined, 4) seeking mutual benefit in all interactions with others -- the golden rule, 5) seeking to understand others from their perspective first before making your point, 6) valuing differences and creating third-alternative solutions to problems that are better than "my way" or "your way," and 7) taking care of and renewing yourself in all four areas of life -- body, mind, heart and spirit.
The approach is inside-out, with the teachers and administrators learning, living and modeling the principles themselves first, and then, at the most basic level, integrating the principles into their teaching every day. There is no new curriculum. The principles of effectiveness are creatively woven by teachers into every subject -- reading, math, history, science, social studies, art, etc. From the moment they walk into the school each day until the final bell rings, the children soak in their adult leaders' belief that they are leaders of their own lives, have unique talents, and can make a difference.
We don't define leadership as becoming the CEO or the few percent who will end up in big leadership positions. We are talking about leading your own life, being a leader among your friends, being a leader in your own family. Leadership, as one school put it, is doing the right thing even when no one is looking.
The world has moved into one of the most profound eras of change in human
history.
Are you a teacher? Sign up now. It's free!
As a teacher you create a network for you and your students.
Share inspiration, ideas, readings, thoughts
Post discussions, deadlines, homework
Embed pictures, links and video
Keep parent
Twitter-like website for educators and children to use as a class or school. Embed text, images, videos, links and even Google Docs files. The site has a live chat functure open to just the class.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+&+Web+Tools
What other people are saying: By Jennifer Alman for the Emergent Technologies in a collaborative class at Full Sail University. Features and benefits of using Twiducate for collaboration in an educational setting. Are you a teacher? Sign up now. It's simple and free!twiducate is the perfect solution for elementary and secondary students.
many brilliant, talented young people are dropping out of high school because they see high school as implicilty "college prep" and they cannot imagine anything more dreary than spending four more years bored in a classroom when they could be out actually experiencing and perfecting their skills in the trades, the skills, and the careers that inspire them.
The abolishing of art, music, physical education, tech training, and shop from grade schools and high schools means that the requirement for excellence has shrunk more and more right at the time when creativity, imagination, dexterity, adaptability to change, technical know-how, and all the rest require more not less diversity.
we make education hell for so many kids, we undermine their skills and their knowledge, we underscore their resentment, we emphasize class division and hierarchy, and we shortchange their future and ours,
There are so many viable and important and skilled professions that cannot be outsourced to either an exploitative Third World sweat shop or to a computer, that require face-to-face presence, and a bucketload of skills--but that do not require a college education: the full range of IT workers, web designers, body workers (ie deep tissue massage), yoga and pilates instructors, fitness educators, DJ's, hair dressers, retail workers, food industry professionals, entertainers, entertainment industry professionals, construction workers, dancers, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, landscapers, nanny's, elder-care professionals, nurses's aids, dog trainers, cosmetologists, athletes, sales people, fashion designers, novelists, poets, furniture makers, book keepers, sound engineers, inn keepers, wedding planners, stylists, photographers, auto mechanics, and on and on.
In general, I agree. However, novelists and poets don't need college?? And perhaps less so to artists and musicians? Perhaps... but what better way to learn the history and analysis of their Art, in order to place their own work in context?
I could not agree more with you Maureen. As a long time middle school teacher in Oakland and Mpls I am thoroughly convinced that our nation and our states are nuts to have cut all of the tech and arts classes out of elementary, middle and high schools. EVERY student should learn a trade/skill set in high school. The hs drop out rate is horrifying and no surprise that the crime rate follows. We have a nation of under achieving teens because the adults have not kept up with funding the myriad of opportunities that would capture and harness their interests and creativity. I look forward to reading your book Maureen and to following you on here.
An important read for anyone who truly wants to understand what's really important in education and the false reform strategies of our current (and past) administration.
