archives

learning

This tag is associated with 64 posts

A Letter to High School Seniors: Don’t Accept College Rejections

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 1 Comment

I wanted to share a recent essay I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “A Letter to High School Seniors: Don’t Accept College Rejections”: Dear High School Seniors, Over the past few weeks, many of you have received letters from the colleges to … Continue reading »

I’m Angry

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 9 Comments

It’s Monday, and I’m angry. I’m angry because, after a weekend of careful planning, after differentiating an assignment for students who have mastered skills at different levels, after catching up on all of my grading, after getting my lesson plans in on time with the TEKS and the Reading Comprehension standards and the ELPS, I … Continue reading »

Living with Pirates on Your Ship…and getting back to the teaching.

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 2 Comments

Originally posted at educatedtodeath.com I’ve written a series of depressing posts. Perhaps I’m in my blue period as a teacher. I certainly find the mess surrounding me depressing. My conversations with teachers at my school are similarly hopeless. But, we are not without hope. Before proceeding, the juxtaposition of my position, and the position of … Continue reading »

Finding Our Footing After Superstorm Sandy

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 2 Comments

  Last Monday I decided to invest ten or fifteen minutes out of our forty-nine minutes of instruction to reconnect. Sandy changed us all. The students have varying reactions. Some were impacted minimally. They aren’t aware of the outside world beyond what impacts them directly and they only lost internet for twelve hours. Which was … Continue reading »

Why I don’t “just find another job”

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 1 Comment

Originally posted at educatedtodeath.com I have a bit of venom toward the system that employs me. It has been suggested that “if [I] don’t like it, then leave.” That suggestion discounts my reasons for staying, and indicates that I’m concerned namely with/for my own well-being. I can see how an outsider might see it that … Continue reading »

I’m almost too tired to voice my dissent.

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 3 Comments

Originally posted at educatedtodeath.com I’ve been quieter this year, more subdued. I’ve felt guilty. Today, I failed to attend a meeting that could have served as an opportunity to work for the better, or fight the worse. I can barely find time to write. My posts are fewer, and my involvement in social media is … Continue reading »

Collaborate, but collaborate better than thy neighbor(?).

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 8 Comments

Originally posted at educatedtodeath.com We’ve had several meetings this year that have all had a similar message: “create a competitive environment in your classroom to motive your students”. We are told that they respond well to competition. They should always strive to do better than their neighbor. We are also expected to tell them that … Continue reading »

Learned Humanity

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 3 Comments

While in DC a couple of weeks ago for the Bammy Awards I had the chance to tour the Holocaust Museum with a few colleagues. It was powerful, moving, and saddening. I left convinced more than ever that what we do matters, and matters mightily. Wandering the beautifully and hauntingly constructed museum, the visceral taste of … Continue reading »

Sneaky Evaluators: Who Sent You, and Why are You Disrupting My Class?

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 3 Comments

Originally posted at educatedtodeath.com There is a constant stream of evaluators and academic “coaches” streaming through the classrooms at my school. They come in driving unreasonably nice cars, and always look like they just came from a designer boutique and then a full service salon. They look like blooming movie star hopefuls or just well … Continue reading »

Socrates Was Wrong

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 2 Comments

Socrates was wrong? I don’t believe that necessarily, but read on and you’ll see why I wrote it (on top of shooting for a subject line controversial enough to increase the open rate of my post I attended a workshop this summer at the Right Question Institute in Boston. We spent two days working hands-on … Continue reading »

Beginnings at the Albany Free School

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 2 Comments

For the 2012 -2013 year, I will be an intern at the Albany Free School.  I found out about the Free School through AERO, the Alternative Education Resource Organization, back in the days when I first began learning about democratic schools. I decided to join their internship program as my own form of alternative learning. … Continue reading »

Teaching in the Dark Times of Corp Edu-Reform (Guest Post by G. A. Steele)

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 1 Comment

(First written September of 2011 updated and revised June 2012)   Long, long ago, before the dark times of the federal education takeover, first with NCLB law during the reign of Bush II, which was soon followed by the bait-and-switch corporate edu-reform days of RTTT during the reign of Obama, teachers had the freedom to … Continue reading »

Real Reform: What we DO want (?)

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 9 Comments

Easy way to get a new post – paste your treatise from another blog… Yesterday (Sat. 6/9) this was posted on BlueJersey: “There’s a lot written here about what we don’t like about the right wing education “reform” agenda – the attack on unions, privatization, etc. I’m at an education panel at Netroots Nation, and … Continue reading »

Bring on the Learning Revolution

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 8 Comments

(Cross-posted from Life’s about the Journey) In Sir Ken Robinson’s second most notable TED talk, Bring on the Learning Revolution, he talks of a 2nd climate crisis. One as severe as the one coupled with global warming, but not a crisis of environmental resources. Rather, a crisis of human resources. He says that we poorly use … Continue reading »

Teaching for Revolution

Posted by ⋅ ⋅ 4 Comments

Originally posted at educatedtodeath.com Why teach critical thinking if not for revolution? Revolution is change, transformation, innovation. It’s a concept that is inevitable if people learn to think, learn to learn, learn that they are the creators of culture. Critical thinking embraces the individual power to create, collaborate, question, reinvent, and so forth. When we … Continue reading »

« Older posts

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,984 other followers

Comments are subject to moderation.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 3,984 other followers