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These heartbreaking words from a teacher in the UK. As the world tries to improve education by the numbers, the world has forgotten kids aren't numbers. They are precious, individual and unique and deserve education systems that celebrate and encourage that. OK, teachers, it is time to man the media - you are the media now! Are you fed up yet? It might not be you right now, but if you don't speak, it will be, wherever you teach, such stories impact us all and the profession we care for so much. "As a teacher, I vowed that I would work hard to nurture my students, to make each and every student feel valued and for them to know that they have a voice, and a place in the world. However the last two years have made me feel like that insecure 14-year-old again: I have lost my confidence because of the overly-rigid current education system. We are constantly being told we are not good enough and that we are not doing enough: enough intervention, enough rigorous marking, enough sustained and rapid progress. What excited me the most about becoming a teacher was discovering the hidden talents and sparks of genius in my students. However, it breaks my heart to say this, but I feel that I no longer have time, nor am I encouraged to make these discoveries. We are so caught up with data and so many progress checks that we don't give our students the time to shine. I wonder what would happen if the greats of the world like Einstein, Gaudi, Picasso and Martin Luther King were to attend school in 2013, would they be able to cultivate their talents and thrive?"

The paper presents and questions the main claims made about digital natives and analyses the nature of the debate itself. We argue that rather than being empirically and theoretically informed, the debate can be likened to an academic form of a 'moral panic'. We propose that a more measured and disinterested approach is now required to investigate 'digital natives' and their implications for education.

Interesting discussion going on about the pros and cons of a strict school environment

This article is dealing with a school and a social environment that has deteriorated past the ability to self-regulate through a series of stated guidelines. Both your school and ours are able to maintain their levels of operation through similar sets of guidelines, but in viewing the situation in the article I can completely understand how that school would need to take those steps to regain control over what had become an unmanageable situation. Looking at examples from the article of students who receive detention for failing to carry their ID after being reminded of it the previous day is not an unusual policy in most public schools. Denial of the "pleasant" aspects of school life for students who struggle academically or behaviorally is also nothing new. In this case they have made it a core part of the students life. Think about it this way: how many of these students who learn through these hard lessons of personal responsibility are going to be come parents who pass along to their children the values of personal responsibility? Some of the parents at CCS have a saying..."It's good to be in the bubble." There is a safe, easily maintained environment at the school, reinforced by clear guidelines and rules with defined penalties for failure to comply. To those who would think this too strict or limiting I would refer you to the number of students returning to our school after venturing into the "real world" and realizing "the bubble" is a better place for them. This is very similar to what I saw at SLA when I visited. Your students are committed to attending the school. They have a personal investment in their futures and the future of the school, something many mandatory schools lack. It's that personal investment that makes respect mean something to them and carry the weight it should in balancing their actions and behaviors with the greater good. For those of us "in the bubble" it can be disturbing to observe the tactics necessary to restore, or in some

"July 31, 2011 By David Glenn Cambridge, Mass. This past April in Switzerland, Lawrence Lessig gave an impassioned lecture denouncing publishers' paywalls, which charge fees to read scholarly research, thus blocking most people from access. It was a familiar theme for Mr. Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School who is one of the world's most outspoken critics of intellectual-property laws. But in this speech he gave special attention to JSTOR, a not-for-profit journal archive. He cited a tweet from a scholar who called JSTOR "morally offensive" for charging $20 for a six-page 1932 article from the California Historical Society Quarterly. The JSTOR archive is not usually cast as a leading villain by open-access advocates. But Mr. Lessig surely knew in April something that his Swiss audience did not: Aaron Swartz-a friend and former Harvard colleague of Mr. Lessig's-was under investigation for misappropriating more than 4.8 million scholarly papers and other files from JSTOR. On July 19, exactly three months after Mr. Lessig's speech, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging that Mr. Swartz had abused computer networks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and disrupted JSTOR's servers. If convicted on all counts, Mr. Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison."

Great resource for social studies teaching and school-bullying videos and resources.