So an “enlightened” student calls out a “terrible” teacher and the nation takes notice. It doesn’t bother me so much that a “terrible” teacher, teaching by packet may finally be getting his/her comeuppance so much as the belief that a minute and thirty seconds is all that we need to make a judgment. Normal.dotm 0 0 1 610 3480 ...

Today was a good day, to quote the title of a previous post and quite an excellent piece of music by Ice Cube.  It was the first day of school.  My seventeenth first day of school as a teacher.  People asked all week ''are you ready?''  I replied honestly to some that while I looked forward to a new school year, I wasn't looking forward to the ...

Prologue:  Is a prologue allowed in a blog post?  I guess it is now. After writing and rewriting the post below in response to my colleague's Thursday afternoon post I'm still not happy with it.  So here's the short of it.  It's irresponsible to ignore the value of technology in education--AND--it is irresponsible to overestimate the value of ...

My colleague and I write a lot about education reform here on the TU.  It may seem like we oppose much of the current reform. We do.  Not because we are obstructionists.  In fact it is obvious that our nation's education system needs continual improvement and we welcome positive changes.  Less obvious is which if any of these reforms have merit.  ...

Greatness is a relative term and there is a growing effort focused on making the teachers we have across this country better. But there's a simple solution. Hire more crappy teachers and voila. That will effectively increase the relative quality of those currently employed. Obviously that was a joke but so are some of the suggestions currently ...

Discussion of education policy and reform often centers on issues of curriculum, instruction, and assessment.  No doubt these are among the most important factors in education, but increasingly I realize the most important aspect of my job is motivation.  Twentieth century psychology was pretty firmly entrenched in a behaviorist view of ...

You know you've made the big time when John Stewart targets you.  I would love to see more attention to school and teacher issues in the media, but so few people are willing to move any deeper into the conversation than pointing the finger at the easy solution.  Here's John Stewart's take: The Daily Show Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political ...

“Diana Virgo, a math teacher at the Loudoun Academy of Science in Virginia, gives students a more real-world experience with functions. She brings in a bunch of chirping crickets into the classroom and poses a question:” So begins a story related in the book “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath. They applaud the teacher for providing a concrete ...

In the debate over current school budgets the ''average class size'' statistic has become increasingly significant. The statistic is misused and covers some disturbing trends that directly affect the quality of what I am able to do. Admittedly most concrete data and studies indicating benefits of smaller class sizes exists at the lower grade ...

“Exceptionally Effective- showing the ability to go beyond the ordinary in producing desired results.”  This is part one of our series on the qualities that make an ''exceptionally effective teacher.''   I learned very early in my career that teaching from another teacher's plan is not as easy as it sounds.  One thing that I have appreciated about ...