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.
Learn What Daily Life was Like in Colonial Times, Colonial Life Trivia, How the Colonists Lived, What Foods the Colonists Ate, Facts about Colonial Occupations and Colonial Education on KidInfo.com's Colonial Life Resource Page.
At Google, we support the education of families on how to stay safe online. That's why we've teamed up with online safety organization iKeepSafe to develop curriculum that educators can use in the classroom to teach what it means to be a responsible online citizen.
The curriculum is designed to be interactive, discussion filled and allow students to learn through hands-on and scenario activities. On this site you'll find a resource booklet for both educators and students that can be downloaded in PDF form, presentations to accompany the lesson and animated videos to help frame the conversation.
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:
Over 42,000 spelling words with customizable sentences and
definitions
A REAL person who says each word and sentence
Free home pages for teachers and parents to save lists
Teacher
training videos
Free printable handwriting worksheets
Free teaching resources with lists and lesson plans
Twenty-five games to play online or to print such as
Over
Over
42,000
spelling
words with customizable sentences and
definitions
A
REAL
person
who says each word and sentence
Free home pages
for
teachers and parents to save lists
Teacher
training
videos
Free printable
handwriting worksheets
Free teaching
resources
with lists
and lesson plans
Twenty-five games to play online or to print such
as
:Alphabetical
Order, Unscramble, Parts of Speech, HangMouse, Crossword Puzzle, WordSearch, and Vocabulary Test.
A free forum and newsletters
Over
42,000
spelling
words with
customizable sentences and
definitions
A
REAL
person
who says
each word and sentence
Free home pages
for
teachers and parents to save
lists
Teacher
training
videos
Free printable
handwriting worksheets
Free teaching
resources
with
lists
and lesson plans
Twenty-five games to play online or to print
such
as
:
Alphabetical
Order
,
Unscramble
,
Parts of
Speech
,
HangMouse
,
Crossword Puzzle
,
WordSearch
,
and
Vocabulary
Test
.
A free
forum
and
newsletters
SpellingCity.com has:
- Over 42,000 spelling words and ten learning games!
- A REAL person who says each word and sentence.
- Free home pages for teachers and parents to save lists.
- How To Videos to explain to teachers and parents how to use SpellingCity.com.
- A free forum and newsletter with more vocabulary and spelling resources!
- Ten spelling and vocabulary games to play online or to print.
- Free printables for handwriting practice with your saved lists.
- A Resources Section which highlights features and existing lists for Dolch words, compound words, sound-alikes (their, there, they're), contractions, possessives, and more.
After taking the online spelling test, students can print out a report, retake the entire test, or get tested only on spelling words that they got wrong the first time.
TeachMe spells and displays the word in ways that stimulate memory for visual and verbal learners.
Printable Games include WordSearch, UnScramble, WhichWord?, Sentence UnScramble and MissingLetter.
Printable Handwriting Worksheets for combined spelling and handwriting practice can be created from any saved list (this feature only works if the list is saved). Choices includes three sizes of lines, capitals or small letters, script or cursive, and with directional arrows on or off. How cool is that?
All you have to do is type in the list of words and bam! at least 10 games are generated for the students! It also teaches and tests the students on the words. You can save the lists as a teacher and have students search for your lists or you can have students input their own lists without saving them.
A superb resource where teachers can sign in and input spelling lists for pupils to learn by playing games. Give pupils the link and they don't need to sign in to use it. Site only recognises US spelling when generating example sentences, but you can input your own easily. Free option should be enough for most users, but 'paid for' option is available.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English
Series of lesson plans, collections of art for students, an art game for young (5-8 years old) students, interactive activities for older students, and podcasts about art and artists. Can be searched by theme, artist, medium, or subject.
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.
Hi All in EDUC 8844,I have used many multi-media tools over the past years both in my Masters class, at school with elementary and middle school students. I have also used different tools in this c...
professional development and student activities for a variety of science topics - if you need a refresher before teaching this is a good resource. Also lots of simulations are available. Requires sign in but does not require NSTA membership and many are free. Can save to My Library
"Before you begin a telecollaborative project," she said, "Look at the plan critically and decide whether it's worth it in terms of learning outcomes. Ask yourself these questions:
Does this use of the Internet allow students to do something that can't be done in another way?
Does this use of the Internet allow students to do something in a better way?
"If the answer to either of those questions is yes," said Harris, "then your project is probably worth doing."
"As teachers, we need to do what is our art and our craft -- which is teaching, not technology."
Judi Harris has been this champion for years...she long ago convinced me that you shouldn't use tech just for the sake of using tech. Her statements gives the compelling questions we should all ask ourselves before embarking on the use of precious time. What's your return on investment????
An activity structure, according to Harris, is simply a description of what students do in an activity, without reference to content or grade level. For example, kindergarten students mixing paints, elementary students forming compound words, and high-school students creating chemical compounds are all using an activity structure that involves combining existing elements to form new elements. The content and grade level are strikingly different, but the basic activity, the structure of the activity, is the same.
Existing activity structures, said Harris, are usually supported best by existing instructional tools. If Internet tools are going to be used to enable students to do something they haven't been able to do, or do as well, before, new activity structures, structures that are best supported by new instructional tools, must be identified and implemented.
Develop a project plan that's specific and logistically manageable.
Be sure students have regular access to computers. Once a week in a computer lab is not enough time. For students to get the most out of a telecomputing project, they must be able to participate at least two or three times a week.
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.
In many kindergarten classrooms there is no playtime at all. Teachers say the curriculum does not incorporate play, there isn’t time for it, and many school administrators do not value it.
Then you can't really blame teachers here. Policy/curriculum has to change.
“We have had a politically and commercially driven effort to make kindergarten a one-size-smaller first grade. Why in the world are we trying to teach the elementary curriculum at the early childhood level?”
Finnish children similarly have a lengthy and playful childhood, not beginning formal schooling until age 7. Yet Finland consistently gets the highest scores on international exams.
AMEN!
Cathy Davidson
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?
