When I was in 7th grade, my English teacher, Mr. Z, provided us with a monthly assignment called Free Choice. Its purpose was to encourage writing and teach its processes. Every month we had to turn in a piece of writing - story, poem, song, a few recepies or haikus - with all of the steps of the writing process attached. You could submit ...

How is it that teachers get such a bad rap?  I am the queen of randomness, but with my madness there is reason.  I was surfing the web today, reading about the pearls (or maybe more appropriately, the perils) of NCLB, and I am amazed at some of the responses that parents gave to NCLB.  I guess I have to realize that perspectives are ...

An interesting follow up to my Feb 29 post (What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?) showed up today from eSchool News. The article, U.S. Educators Seek Lessons from Scandinavia, reported on a visit to Scandinavian schools by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). The purpose of the visit was to find “answers for how students [...]

Yes, there are dozens of reports publishes about segments of teaching or on specific assessments to measure teaching. Yet, what are we left with to direct us to improve education? Where are the improvement committees and how did they get there? At the high school where I teach is a committee to collect improvement ideas and discuss them. There ...

The US Department of Education released a new report: Mapping America's Educational Progress 2008. I learned a few things reading it. My big question ... How come we settle for less when it comes to the results of educating our future leaders of the world? One example comes to mind, the Super Bowl. Millions of dollars spent to produce a game ...

Regardless of one's political views, these pictures say a lot.  If I were campaigning to run for President, I'd want to see some before and after pictures first.  Touting the success of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), President Bush urged Congress to ''strengthen this good law'' by increasing accountability, adding ...

I suspect many readers of this blog are not old enough to remember Sputnik (1957) and the massive changes that it brought to math and science education in our nation’s K-12 and post-secondary schools. But we are all beneficiaries of those changes. After Sputnik, the United States embarked on an extended emphasis on math and [...]

It’s difficult to find arguments for the success of NCLB, but here’s a unique twist on the topic. Parents (at least those in Kansas) don’t appear to support strengthening math, science, and technology programs to enhance 21st century skills. This report from eSchool News suggests that parents are on the whole satisfied with ...

Below is a brief overview of South Carolina teacher certification requirements:South Carolina Division of Educator Quality and Leadership requires Praxis II Examinations that include all the content area tests and the PLT. The PLT is the ''Principles of Learning and Teaching'' that are divided into three levels: K-6, 5-9, 9-12. Students in teacher ...

This started because I was saying how much I really did love substitute teaching and how much I really am enjoying my classes but that I was looking forward to a regular schedule without the ''night-time'' component -- wreaks havoc with the kids' schedules -- and Al (my dear hubby) said, ''well... you may ...