CARNIVAL IN A STRANGE LAND

“I do know that the slickest way to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time — and then shut up.” ~ Jubal Harshaw, “Stranger in a Strange Land” (Robt. Heinlein)

 Welcome, welcome! The Carnival this week has been set up in a Strange Land, where inconsistencies, inspirations, the incomprehensible, immoral and imaginative in education are investigated and illuminated. In a Strange Land, we do try to serve as fair witnesses, to grok education practice and policy. And—we love all educators, but teachers most of all.

In a Brave New World, we all need guideposts:

And who better than the estimable Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach to lead the way with a truly wise and comprehensive post on 9 Principles for Implementation: The Big Shift ? You can find Sheryl N-B every day making the future real at 21st Century Learning.

Gonna start an extreme Strange Land Fan Club for eduwonkette, a blogger so smart she’s had her gender questioned. Read In Which We Make Sweeping Generalizations from a Sample of 69 Teach for America Teachers in North Carolina –and learn.

If we got to redesign a brave new ed-world, we could start by Redefining Basic Skills posted at TeachMoore by wise woman Renee Moore. Says Renee: How many facts does a child really need to know, and why does s/he have to learn them by a certain age or grade level? Meet a fellow traveler, Renee—here’s Andrea, at Andrea's Buzzing About... and her new blog Are You 'Slow'? "When we mistake speed for ability — or rather, lack of speed for lack of ability — we misinterpret a person’s intelligence and their ability to learn."

My best blogging buddy, Bill Ferriter, presents Middle Schoolers and MySpace posted at The Tempered Radical. If there were ever a Strange New Land, it’s MySpace. And if there is a teacher who groks kids and technology, it's Bill.

Susan N. Graham discusses prize teacher pork and some tips on not becoming somebody’s teacher-leader lunch in the first blog ever to make me salivate: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? posted at A Place at the Table.

Professionalism for teachers in this new world? Rich reading from fellow Teacher Leaders Network big thinker, Anthony Cody in Class Struggle: Empowering the Teaching Profession | Edutopia posted at Anthony Cody's Blog.

Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction—even science fiction—as these perspectives from the field reveal:

John Holland, my favorite fair witness, takes a risk and states the obvious in Lead from the Start: research finding: "what teachers do with kids" matters posted at Circle Time "Lead From The Start". Relationships, they aren't just for preschool anymore.

Must-read blog: New York State ELA Exam Plugs Teach For America and Working as a Grocery Bagger posted at The Chancellor's New Clothes. Kristina’s synopsis: "This is a two part post about encouraging students to be subservient and to accept inexperienced teachers as their saviors."  Teacher in a Strange Land's take: There’s a lot more going on in this blog than is captured by Kristina’s brief comment. Read. And start blogging. Stranger than fiction indeed.

Stuff about interesting little citizens: check out With Great Expectations: Spring Break? posted by dayle timmons at With Great Expectations. More itty-bitty citizen stuff: Michaele Sommerville presents 1/2 Day, Extended Day, Full Day Kindergarten posted at Kindergarten's 3 R's: Respect, Resources, & Rants. Rounding out a truly inspiring little-kid trilogy, first-time Carnival submitter Jane presents Show, Not Tell... (Why I Love Student-Led Conferences) posted at My Life with Daniel.

Cossondra George, also in her Carnival debut, gives us The Arbitrary-ness of Education posted at Middle School, day by day from a teacher's point of view. Arbitrary—good word for middle schoolers.

Ms. Cornelius always looks at things from a new point of view. Check out That's why it's called a grade point AVERAGE. posted at A Shrewdness of Apes, which features, among many other interesting phenomena, the Cult That Is Marching Band.

Should Everyone Attend College? asks Corey Bunje Bower at Thoughts on Education Policy. Good question. Who gets to answer? Go check out Corey’s blog. He has lots of questions. Woodlassnyc asks another good question at When did education turn into an industrial complex? in her blog, Under Assault: Teaching in NYC.

Mrs. Bluebird, thinking about the real and surreal, in Failing to Launch and How to Take 60 7th Graders Camping and Live to Tell About It - Part 1 posted at Bluebird's Classroom, notes that this is "Part I in a series." Bluebird, how many more parts can there be? Tune in to next week’s Carnival, or cut to the chase: Chris Wondra on Why I Don't Do Field Trips posted at Think Thank Thunk. Chris, who appears to have had a bad experience, says: Overnight field trips + Teens = Sex? You'd better believe it. And if you're brave enough to supervise an overnighter, you'd better be ready to prevent it--or pay a price. Shudder.

Siobhan Curious presents some classroom insights in sharing leadership with students posted at Siobhan Curious, my nominee for best science fiction-y blog name. Nominee for best posting title?  About this blog and its title posted by Dana at Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable. The ability to tackle the adventures—epic and ordinary—that life throws at us is one of the most important skills we can teach to our students. Thus said Dana, speaking a mouthful.

Last-Minute Conversions posted by NYC Educator, who says, "What do you do with kids who do no work all year and then request a miracle four weeks before school ends?” TIASL’s response: Introduce ‘em to the concept of science fiction.

Mister Teacher dips into fiction himself with A really sorry movie parody posted at Learn Me Good. Sez Mr. T: "My parody of Speed Racer -- E-Raser." We get it, T. And muse over at me-ander channels yet another movie: Meeting The Parents.

historyiselementary presents Ah....the Month of May posted at History Is Elementary. A very pretty blog interface and some lovely thoughts. Speaking of lovely thoughts, California Teacher Guy posted some over at CaliforniaTeacherGuy—one of those random sweet moments that makes a teacher understand that maybe it’s a good day, after all.

OK. How about 10 Ways to Make Certain That Your Kids Hate School, Become Lazy & Dependent Learners, Drive Their Teachers Crazy, & End Up Living in Your Basement Until They Are 40 - posts - Homework. Dinner. Life. Longest blog title winner, posted by Angela Norton Tyler, who says, "in this post, Angela shares a story about how she used to do too much for her daughter." Way, way too much, evidently. A good one.

Sarah Weisz says Everyone wants to be in Teach for America posted at Teaching Excellence Network. Not exactly everyone, but certainly lots of bright young things. Here’s the money quote, however: why [are] fabulous, bright, committed teachers...still leaving in such great numbers?

One fabulous, bright, committed teacher who isn’t going anywhere, Pat, shares Perceptions About Teaching over at Successful Teaching. And check out Darren and Ronald Reagan, man of steel (brass?), in Right on the Left Coast: Views From a Conservative Teacher in his post Free Speech And Rudeness.

Junkies is The Science Goddess's offering this week, on What It's Like on the Inside. Inside, outside, junkies…who knew?

From a strange but different land (the UK) oldandrew submits A Brief History of Education Part 5. The Battleground School posted at Scenes From The Battleground. Online distance learning programs are providing much-needed services for Gifted Students. Check out Bright and Wired: The Gifted Kids Network posted at On Living By Learning.

Revisiting AERA, Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground and Public Education comes from Matthew K at Education for the Aughts.  Is Matthew old enough to remember Bill Ayers?  Teacher in a Strange Land is.

A little science, a little math, a little rock and roll:

One of my blogging heroes, the eponymous Joanne Jacobs (Joanne Jacobs), pokes at us with What do math-smart women want? Are men from Mars? Are women from Venus? Read about why women prefer to “work with organic things.” Hmmm.

In Reflections of a Techie, math/science teacher-techie Marsha Ratzel muses on the intricacies of Homework, Feedback and Improving Grades. A+ stuff—but Marsha, what’s a shoulder partner? This blog involves lots of paradigm-shift thinking.

Great discussion on STEM over at the award-winning Teacher Voices, featuring some of the smarter teachers on the planet: The Teacher Leaders Network.

Greg Laden presents How Society Will Accept Rational Science: The Best Way to Frame Global Warming and Evolution . Check Greg Laden's Blog for more Real Science and a cool picture of what I hope is Greg dancing with his beautiful daughter.

IB a Math Teacher presents Scapegoat posted at 3σ → Left. And IB happy to share this link. Over at Let's play math!, Denise shares The Function Machine Game , a game of math and pre-algebra, for students in grade 5 + up. Denise, meet IB.

Steve Spangler's Blog features Wild About Tie Dye—a little bit hippie, a little bit chemistry. Mamacita says: Be sure to read the comments left by the students.

And over at the Strange Land midway, a selection of items and ideas for sale, organizations for your consideration -- things to marvel at and to wonder about.

Michael Snyder presents Radical Depopulation Of The Earth - The Solution To Mankind's Problems? posted at Shattered Paradigm.

Mark Montgomery presents College Applications: They Can Make You Sick. No kidding. Mark posts at Great College Advice. And—has Mark been talking to Jay Mathews? How Good are Advanced Placement (AP) Courses? Are They Worth Taking?

Mathew Needleman presents Differentiate This: Reflections posted at Open Court Resources.com Blog.

Paul Li presents Brain Training for Kids posted at Lumosity Brain Health, saying, "Teachers and parents should be aware that brain games is a fun way to help children improve their memory, attention, and processing speed and might be more beneficial to children with ADHD/ADD than medication."

Shaheen Lakhan presents Democracy vs. Domestic Violence posted at GNIF Brain Blogger, saying, "People are looking at how we are affected by the groups we belong to that are treated unequally and subjected to various kinds of stress and discrimination -- a field called intersectionality. Poor education contributes to domestic violence and other violent and criminal behavior."

David Cassell presents Masters Or Doctorate - Which One? posted at selectcoursesblog.com. Do we hafta choose?

James DeLelys presents WORDS » Articles posted at WORDS.

Matthew Paulson presents Avoid Default When Struggling With a Student Loan » American Consumer News posted at American Consumer News.

Carol Richtsmeier presents Spring Yearbooks, the 6 o’clock News & Not It posted at Bellringers.

Dana presents The Education Industrial Complex posted at Principled Discovery.

Dave Saba presents MO does equal momentum | American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence posted at DoE- Dave on Ed, saying, "Missouri and Utah - lots happening here."

TherapyDoc presents Jerry Springer at Northwestern University Law posted at Everyone Needs Therapy, saying, "Should he have been the speaker at law school graduation? He was."

cate3 presents Powerful Learning Trick - the continuing saga posted at Why Homeschool, saying, "Henry writes about a way to help students remember more of what they learn."

Carnies are packing up—but please return to a Strange Land again.  It's been great having you here.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of education using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

"Remind me to write a popular article on the compulsive reading of news [on education]. The theme will be that most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers." ~ Jubal Harshaw, “Stranger in a Strange Land,” (Robt. Heinlein)

Comments

[Mamacita]

EXCELLENT carnival! Thank you for including Steve Spangler's post; I thought it was really good.

[Sandra Foyt]

Awesome! I feel like I'm in a strange land - but in a good way.

Thanks for including my post about the Gifted Kids Network.

[Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach]

Great collection. Can't wait to read them all. Shared this with my Twitter buddies. Excited to give them access to such quality.

[Bill Ferriter]

Hey Nancy,

Super well done! I really enjoyed your writing----it drew me into each post, that's for sure.

Gotta look up "grok" though!

Rock right on...Going to tweet the carnival right now....

Bill

[John Holland]

Nancy -- You rock! I Grok!

[Nancy Flanagan]

To "grok" is to understand something at a deep, embedded level--in Martian-speak, it means, literally, to drink. It was a favorite term of my fellow ed-school buddies in the early 70s. We wanted our kids to grok life and become excited about their amazing world. Like most things from that era, it sounds a little simplistic now and does not align with, say, value-added methodology or managed instructional protocols.

Thanks to all commenters-- doing the Carnival was great fun.

[elementaryhistoryteacher]

Thank you so much for including me, and I appreciate your efforts at hosting. :)

[Darren]

Thanks for including my post.

"Geniuses are justifiably contemptuous of the opinions of their inferiors." --Jubal Hershaw

[eduwonkette]

Nancy, As always, you rule!You did a great job with the carnival.

[Batya]

That's some humongous carnival. Great job!
http://me-ander.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-are-teachers-really-like.html

[Ariel Sacks]

Nancy, The Carnival looks awesome. I wish I could have been there, but I am up to my eyebrows reading my students' stories this week (as described in last blog entry). Can't wait to dig in to the cotton candy and ride the thunderbolt here at Strange Land this weekend once this grading madness is over!

[Tamara]

Thanks for a great carnival. I found lots of new blogs today!

[siobhan curious]

Thanks so much for including my post! I've been out of the carnival loop for a while, and this is a great way to get back in. Now I have to think of ways to capitalize on my science-fictiony name...

[Sarah Weisz]

I'm honored for my post to be in such great company in this week's carnival. Thanks!

[Doug Noon]

I grok your blog. Well done.

[therapydoc]

What an incredible list of links. I look forward to visiting.

And that quote! So good.

[The School Bus Driver]

Love this idea. I've recently come across a few blogs and have found i enjoy reading them, I resolve to upkeep my own blog lol. anyhow, thanks for this great compilation of information