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Mainstreaming or Dumping? An article that originally appeared as a subscription only read has now been made available via a CEC SmartBrief link. Schools Accused of Mainstreaming to Cut Costs by John Hechinger tells of one student's travail through the inclusionary process. There are a lot of sides to the inclusion/mainstreaming/pull-out discussion. When I was teaching, I always resisted suggestions we move to inclusion, knowing our school system would never fund or support such a program properly. I do believe inclusion can be done right and is a good option form many special learners, but when school systems choose inclusion (or simply dumping kids into the mainstream without the necessary support) or a pullout program exclusively for all their kids, I think they've missed the boat on planning a program tailored to the needs of each child.
My incredible wife still knows there's a little boy in me, and buys appropriate Christmas toys for me! This year she gave me a Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium New Venue in Illinois Annie and I traveled to nearby Effingham, Illinois, last weekend to take a concert by the old rock group, the Gin Blossoms Send feedback to |
. I've only had a brief tryout with it, but was amazed at the GPS-driven device that can identify celestial objects and/or guide you to items of your choice. 
. It was at a relatively new site, the |
With the holidays we all get busy. For the first time in four years, I once again have an appreciable holiday break, as Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology decided its staffers should have about the same vacation its students and faculty get. But even with the extra time, I've fallen behind watching online educational postings of merit. So today, while I'm waiting for my lovely bride to arrive and help me move some heavy stuff, I'm catching up a bit. Earth Shots I've recently featured the Earth Shots site on Educators' News, but today's shot Going home by Paula Heelan caught my eye. (After Saturday, you'll need to use the link, as the image at right is their daily shot that one can add to a web page from the Earth Shots Webmasters page.
Jamming the Curriculum Lower and Lower I remember while teaching sixth grade science my surprise when the Periodic Table was moved to our curriculum, and just a few years later, to fifth grade. I was reminded of it when I saw Washington Post staff writer Maria Glod's article, Elementary Math Grows Exponentially Tougher: Students, Teachers Tackle Algebra. She writes:
We managed to get through the Periodic Table stuff easily enough. And the story linked above is pretty upbeat about supplying the necessary building blocks for future math, but sometimes I wonder what happened to helping kids understand numbers and basic computation. NCLB Related The New York Times's Sam Dillon writes of massive resistance to President Bush's No Child Left Behind law in Democrats Make Bush School Act an Election Issue. Dillon quotes Tad Devine, a strategist who worked for the past two Democratic presidential nominees, as saying, "There’s a grass-roots backlash against this law. And attacking it is a convenient way to communicate that you’re attacking President Bush.” A possibly related and much more positive article is Nanette Asimov's 239 schools with low-income students honored for academic progress in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's good to see some positive news about learning in the chaos NCLB has helped create in this country. Asteroid Threatens to Hit Mars Two postings about a potential collision of an asteroid with the planet Mars caught my eye today. The first, Asteroid Threatens to Hit Mars, is one of Dr. Tony Phillips's excellent Science@NASA postings that is great for classroom use. The second, Asteroid Impact on Mars: Collision Probability Increased, comes from Live Science. A related posting on Space.com, The Winter Sky: Planets, Stars and Cool Shapes, has some stargazing tips for winter viewing. Wii Table Tennis I post a lot of stuff that's not even close to being educationally related. But I saw a different slant on David Pogue's recent A Fifth Grader’s Review of Wii Table Tennis posting. How cool is it that he had his ten-year-old son write a review! Way to go, Kelly (and David)! When Does a Moment of Silence Become School Sponsored Prayer? Many public schools allow a moment of silent meditation during the school day. During the waning years my classroom teaching career, I saw that "moment" pushed to the limit, but it occurred in a homogeneous community and produced no backlash. The Los Angeles Times's article, Disquiet over schools' moment of silence, examines a recent round of controversy on the issue. As a Christian, I've often silently prayed in the classroom for my students, for strength, and many other things. But I also strongly believe the admonition of Matthew 6:6:
A Few More Links I'm running out of time, so let me post without comment a few more links I found interesting.
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©2007 Steven L. Wood