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Teachers know that making lessons relevant helps motivate students. The most frequent approach is to link curriculum to learner interests. Two educators, Mario Fantini and Gerry Weinstein, in two now out-of-print books, Making Urban Schools Work and Towards Humanistic Education, pointed out that it would be more effective to link curriculum to the concerns of learners. (You can find used copies of both through Book Finder.) What do kids worry about? What anxieties sometimes keep them up at night? What peer interactions churn up their emotions? How do they deal with their fears about the future, college admissions, employment or bullying?

"Yet the reaction from most "reformers," especially those with the most money, is to pretty much stay the course, to treat education as something that schools define, deliver, assess and confirm. Technology allows us to do that "better" than we have in the past, in some conversations "better" than teachers can. It allows us to "achieve" at higher levels, to compete more effectively with the world, and to stoke the push to make every child "college ready." This is not "beginner's mind"-type thinking." The Storified link is particularly worth checking out.

In the big picture, it's not the teachers, it's poverty.  Obviously.  And those who say otherwise are being paid big time by those who want to profiteer off the system.

TED talk on how to make science fun to learn

A science teacher moves into a flipped classroom model... and right past it onto even better things.

This is the article I am reading in prepartation for the Nellie Mae Cross Site Conference.

A nice opinion piece on teacher rating systems in today's NYT

Background/Context: Though change is constant in organizations, determining how to successfully implement planned change has been a perennial challenge for both organizational scholars and practitioners. While the empirical knowledge base on planned change in schools and other organizations offers numerous insights, the inattention to activity, or the practice of leading and managing change, remains. Organizational change theory, and specifically organizational routines, offers a useful lens with which to examine planned change in work practice in schools. The purpose of this study is to understand the role organizational routines play in changing school work practice.

Riverdale is applying "design thinking" to its teaching and learning environments... Check out the links to Ideo and to Design Thinking for Educators. Note: The October conference is being moved to mid-winter, to align with teachers' needs.

Thoughtful critique of the PLC-obsessed school culture

Lessons from Finland on the professionalization of teaching, lessons from Teach For America on its de-professionalization.