I am a dreamer.  I am a visionary.  That means I see things-I notice patterns and get joy out of putting it all together.  That is just how I am wired.  My mother told me that as a child, I would get extremely upset with disorder and that I was always trying to clean things up.  I guess that makes for a somewhat anal ...

As I said in this post last week, my principal (the Prince) really pushed back at me last week when I challenged him on our NCLB status and some other things.  On Monday we had someone from the district come out to talk to us in very clear, positive language about our status as a 6th year school, and what that means for us.  And oddly enough, it ...

Yesterday at our mentor/master teacher meeting, we met Wonder Woman’s replacement, and at her request, went through our end of the year notes on what worked, what didn’t, and what we want to do differently this year.  I was rather pointed in my concerns — lack of leadership, bad test scores, being at the final stage under No ...

We would never ask a doctor to learn surgery on the operating table. Margaret Spellings, U.S. Secretary of Education I ran into this quote while reading Laura Bush's comments at the Fifth Annual Reading First National Conference given a couple of weeks ago, which she attributed to Margaret Spellings. I am naturally ritalin-deficient and spent ...

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 [...]

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 in that region ...

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 ...