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"AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat

"Teens who were severely bullied as children by peers are at higher risk of mental health issues, including suicidal thoughts and behaviours, according to new research in CMAJ(Canadian Medical Association Journal). "Our findings showed a general tendency, in about 15% of the children, of being exposed to the most severe levels of victimization from the beginning of their education until the transition to high school," writes Dr. Marie-Claude Geoffroy, McGill Group for Suicide Studies, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, with coauthors. "Those children were at greater risk of debilitating depressive/dysthymic symptoms or anxiety and of suicidality in adolescence than less severely victimised children, even after we accounted for a plethora of confounders assessed throughout childhood.""

[WATCH] #PBL at ACE Leadership High School http://t.co/FN5kAY63a2 #Education #Students #EdReform *students formerly at-risk

Article about high school game design classes.

"Teachers are notorious for ignoring health concerns and just carrying on. From teaching with a high fever, and soldiering on with 4 hours of sleep, teachers often put their health at risk. But done this make teachers more productive, or less?"

"It was October and I was standing on the roof of a high rise building in the middle of Shanghai. Flight after flight of stairs interspersed with several elevator journeys had brought me to the summit, and the rooftop on which I now stood served as a primary school playground for hundreds of pupils. As I made my way to the edge of the building I was amazed to find that the only barrier between me and the pavement - 16 stories down - was a small wall, waist height at most. I peered over the edge and can still recall that instant feeling of danger and dizziness washing over my entire body. I stepped back and turned to the Chinese headteacher whose school I was visiting."

Well-written commentary for anyone interested in the impact of Common Core Standards. "What's Wrong With the Common-Standards Project" "We need rigorous but basic academics, homing in on skills that will be used, and not short-shrifting the "soft skill" behaviors that lead to success in college and careers. The management guru Peter Drucker got it right: "The result of a school is a student who has learned something and puts it to work 10 years later."

There is a danger in seeking finished perfection in all that we do. There is a risk that our students will focus solely on the attributes that define a finished piece and overlook the importance of the process that leads to it.

On why MOOCs are flawed

The Trouble with Black Boys - - by Pedro A. Noguera / Education Rights / In Motion Magazine

"Adolescents who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or questioning are much more likely to consider, plan or attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, San Diego, and San Diego State University published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Specifically, of a nationally representative sample of 15,624 high-school age participants, 40 percent of sexual-minority adolescents seriously considered suicide compared to 15 percent of their heterosexual counterparts. Nearly a quarter attempted suicide compared to approximately 6 percent of those in the sexual majority."

" improve teaching and curriculum flexibility to effectively deliver core learning in ways which engage young people"

An essay on what the SAT says about society's view of education, accomplishments, aptitude, and self-esteem. 

I get very tired of having people point to Singapore as a good model for education. Singaporeans score well on tests because their life depends on it. Doing poorly on the PSLE taken at the end of sixth grade virtually guarantees you will never attend university and will limit your income for the rest of your life. Parents in Singapore spend thousands every year on private tuition, the sole goal of which is to produce high test scores. Singapore also recognizes that they are not producing creative students. In fact they wish they were more like the US.

Carol Black, creator of the documentary, "Schooling the World" discusses the conflicting ideas of centralized control of education and standardization against the so-called freedom to think independently--"what the Supreme Court has termed 'the sphere of intellect and spirit" (Black, 2012). Root questions: "who's educating us? to what end?" (Black, 2012).

This is a must read. Carol Black echoes here many of the ideas of Paulo Freire, John Taylor Gatto and the like.

Update | Feb. 2012: We'll be exploring the new Common Core State Standards, and how teaching with The Times can address them, through a series of blog posts. You can find them all here, tagged "the NYT and the CCSS."

A good list of reading strategies for informational text from the New York Times.