“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)