The second quarter of the school year just ended, and my 9th graders and I spent it talking about definition. That may sound boring, but we start the quarter with two books excerpts. In the first excerpt, from Steven Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought, Pinker uses a debate about whether the 9/11 attacks at the Read More >>
Today my Creative Writing class held its kickoff for this year’s Children’s Books project. This project involves a neighboring elementary school. We survey 25 first grade students with a series of questions, things like: What makes you happy? What makes you sad? What do you wonder about? What is your favorite toy, movie, character, etc.? Read More >>
For Banned Books Week this year, I posted about several books that I have taught or read that have been frequently banned or challenged. Some of them I love. Some changed me as a person. If someone had banned them, I might not be the person I am today. And while I may not be Read More >>
In the 2011-2012 School year, Florida introduced one of the worst of its many bad ideas for education: VAM. VAM stands for Value Added Measure. It is a statistical formula that knows your students’ past scores, predicts what their future scores will be, and then rates students based on how much “growth” they showed. Here’s Read More >>
I recently finished reading James Carroll’s epic 2001 history book Constantine’s Sword: the Church and the Jews. The book traces anti-Semitism through church history, from the very early days of the church, through the Roman Emperor Constantine’s vision of a cross on the Milvian Bridge in Rome, all the way up to the Holocaust and Read More >>
I am addressing this open letter to education reformers, most of whom will never see or read it. Mostly my fellow public educators will read it, and if it brings them some comfort, it will be worth it. I hope some reformers might read it and actually listen instead of getting defensive, but my hopes Read More >>
In his book, You Are Not a Gadget, Jaron Lanier, “programmer, musician, and father of virtual reality technology” examines the effect the synthesizer had on music. MIDI is the Musical Instrument Digital Interface that makes the synthesizer possible. Lanier says, “Before MIDI, a musical note was a bottomless idea that transcended definition. It was a Read More >>
As I approach a new school year in two weeks, I will probably be facing a week of pre-planning that almost inevitably focus too much on data, tested standards, and compliance to curricular conformity. Our focus will be on standardized curriculum, standardized tests, and standardized out comes, with the requisite talk about meeting the individual Read More >>
I love reading and writing and want to pass that love on to my students. I want them to love reading and writing because when you love doing something – you do it better. I want them to dive deep into pages And lose themselves in colorful worlds Created from black and white text. They Read More >>