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I remain very, very concerned with the notion that all we have to do is let the kids connect with the world -- just like they do on Facebook or MySpace -- and the kids will learn. There's a fallacy there, and my experience with how much really deep teaching of digital ethics we've had to do at SLA to counter all that the kids come in the door thinking about the digital world.

is there much of an honest discussion of just how hard implementation of these ideas actually is.

And the problem is that our entire structure has to change to make it easier. You can't teach 150 kids a day this way... you can't have traditional credit hours... you have to find new ways to look at your classroom. Everything from school design to teacher contracts to class size and teacher load to curriculum and assessment -- everything we do in schools -- has to be on the table for change if we are to achieve the kind of schools that video is speaking about. The only thing that shouldn't be on the table, and that the video actually hints that it should be, is the need for teachers in their day to day lives-- the adults who can make a deep profound impact in kids' lives.

“Who did you help today?” It is simple. It inspires empathy. It shows what we truly value… and I look forward to the day when my daughters ‘favorite part of the day’ is also the answer to ‘who did you help today’.

It's not ‘the tests.’ It's our unwillingness and/or inability to do something different, something better. It's not ‘the tests.’ It's us.

In my state, students don't take standardized tests until third grade, but test preparation was a major focus in K-2. Students did little but complete worksheet after worksheet in kindergarten. The block corner was gone, there was no snack time, the dress-up box was taken away, and recess was reduced to just a few minutes. My son and his classmates sat at their little tables and silently filled out worksheets for the majority of the day. Talking, laughing or getting out of your seat was frowned upon. In first grade, the timed math tests began. Shortly after students learned how to add and subtract, they were given daily math facts timed tests in order to "prepare" them for the ITBS math computation tests in third grade. Those lucky enough to pass the tests had their names posted on the winners wall in the classroom. Those who couldn't pass, were sent to the hallway to do flashcards with parent volunteers. In second grade, the timed oral reading tests began. Each week, all students were required to read aloud as fast as they could while they were timed with a stop watch. Those that could spit the words out quickly enough to meet the benchmark number were rewarded with free reading time. Those that were deemed too slow, were given practice pages to read aloud, over and over again. In third grade, they started timed writing tests. His classroom held a weekly contest to see who could write a paragraph the fastest using that week's vocabulary words. The vocabulary words were test prep for ITBS. The fastest child's paragraph was posted on the wall for all to admire. Kids learned very early on that faster meant smarter and that slower meant stupid. NCLB plays a part in the way school has been reduced to test preparation, but teachers chose to use all of these truly awful methods in the classroom. Teachers could have chosen different, more engaging, and more developmentally appropriate teaching methods, but they didn't.

Engineering and Computing Career Conference (ECC) is a two day conference for high school girls to explore engineering majors offered at Georgia Tech.  The 2008 ECC will be held on October 23 & 24 at Georgia Tech's Bill Moore Student Success Center.