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How Would Jesus Teach? John Spencer put up a brief and somewhat unusual posting on his Spencer's Scratchpad (formerly Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher, Teaching Unmasked, etc.) a week or so ago, How Would Jesus Teach? In a time of political correctness for some that often dictates omitting any mention of ones faith, or for others includes bashing folks in the face with their beliefs, John's provocative question and the thoughtful and inspiring comments added to his posting seem most appropriate for a Sunday posting. On Leonard Turkel Since I'm already here at the keyboard, let me add a link to an Answer Sheet posting that appeared just this morning, What reformers could learn from my friend Len. Valerie Strauss writes of the late Leonard Turkel, who "was instrumental in improving the lives of thousands of people in South Florida – poor kids in public schools, families in impoverished neighborhoods, middle-class professionals who needed affordable housing, hurricane victims who needed roofs on their decimated homes." Odds 'n' Ends Over the ten plus years I've published this site, today is only the third Sunday posting I've done. I was going to include John Spencer's posting in our Monday edition, but thought it more appropriate for today. Of course, the irony of making a rare Sunday posting is that I just announced on Friday that I'd only be doing Monday-Wednesday-Friday postings on Educators' News for a while! Send Feedback to |
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Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action The Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action is a grassroots program and protest of what is being done to public education in America by those who claim to be school "reformers." The program's home page for the organization states:
The organization, endorsed by many notable educators and others, is putting together a July 30 rally and march on the Department of Education that will include speakers such as Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol, José Vilson, Deborah Meier, Monty Neill, Angela Valenzuela, and others. For those of us who don't travel well or will be busy (or too poor to attend I've included two banners from the program's Blogger Toolkit in this posting, and there are lots of others out there that folks with blogs, Facebook pages, etc., may want to add to their site(s). Ken Bernstein shared some unique images on Daily Kos. There's also a Facebook page of web art. And Betsy Angert has a collection of truly eye catching online images along with links to posters, flyers, and films one may use in support of the effort. There are lots of stories, articles, columns, posting, what have you, about the effort, but I think I like Myles Hoenig's Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action from January as much as any. Possible Relief from NCLB Dorie Turner's Duncan working on "plan B" for US schools relates that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is looking at relaxing some of the extreme measures in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law because reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) may be bogged down in Congress. But Sam Dillon quotes Duncan in Education Secretary May Agree to Waivers on "No Child" Law Requirements as saying in a conference call last Friday, "Our first priority is to have Congress rewrite the law. If that doesn't get done, we have the obligation to provide relief in exchange for reform." That "in exchange for reform" scarily reminds one of Duncan's previous contests for funding and support for teacher evaluations based on high stakes testing. Acronym Soup: Note that NCLB is the currently used name for the latest version of ESEA. It strikes me that another possible solution to the reauthorization issue might be for the President to fire Secretary Duncan, hire Linda Darling-Hammond or someone with similar views, and get started on legislation that might actually help students, teachers, and schools, rather than the Administration's current punitive program espoused by Duncan. On the Blogs Jenny Orr tells of an interesting art application, Turtle Art, in Absolutely Awesome on her Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It blog. It sorta reminded me of another good art app for little ones, Robin Landsbert's Mirror Paint. "Mrs. Lipstick" makes the case for getting a masters degree in education in Is a masters worth it? Mike Doyle of Science Teacher, arguably the best education blog out there, has apparently had some dustups with New Jersey Governor Christie and the Acting Commissioner of Education in New Jersey, Chris Cerf. He writes a bit about it in The Toryfication of America. I put up a special, Sunday edition of Educators' News yesterday to share John Spencer's How Would Jesus Teach? But it and the comments under it are still a good read on a Monday. Missed This One Last Week I missed a story that developed last week that is really scary about what is happening to personal freedoms in our country. I did a lot of looking and reading before I decided that a summary by Steven Searls may give you a better idea about what allegedly happened better than I could (linked below):
Searls link leads the listing below, and the other links do flesh out the story a bit. The last link by Maria Sallee expresses what I think many of us feel when reading about such stuff.
Odds 'n' Ends I've been aware of the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action program for some time, but had some reservations about endorsing it here on Educators' News due to the interaction I've had with some of its "movers and shakers." I recently wrote a well-respected national columnist (off the record, so no name here) I have regularly traded emails with for several years and asked his views on the situation. He didn't see and hadn't experienced what I had, so I put my petty reservations aside, partly because of his words and partly because there are a host of other educational leaders in the organization whom I respect. A Joe Martha tweet put me onto NPR's How To Put A New Element On The Periodic Table. Getting away from the heavy education stuff and my mini-rant, I did a piece on color in the garden on our Senior Gardening site on Friday, Flowers in the Vegetable Garden. One shot I didn't include was the one below of a couple of heads of ripe cabbage.
Even before our flowers begin to strut their stuff and well before the brilliant, deep reds of our Moira tomatoes appear, cabbage and lettuce varieties adds some color to our vegetable garden. In the photo above, a Super Red 80 and a Tendersweet cabbage sit side-by-side adding to the variety of colors to the broccoli (leaves only shown) and overgrown spinach in the same raised bed. Sadly, the spinach is obviously bolting, and I had to take it out yesterday. Growing spinach in west, central Indiana is a skill I lack, as I always lose ours fairly early in the summer to hot weather. But we did get several nice salads and meals from the spinach before it bolted and got bitter. Now I need to get outide and "pick" the cabbage. You Should See This After dinner Monday evening, my wife remarked, "You should see this." Annie was referring to Dan Stockman's Two Indiana Schools Academically, Socially a World Apart from the May 29 Fort Wayne Journal Gazette that had just appeared in our local Terre Haute Tribune-Star. Without ever mentioning our governor, his politically ambitious superintendent of public instruction, or the cold hearted Republican majority in the state assembly, Stockman puts to shame their idea of school funding equity by comparing a school in Hammond with one in Carmel. After giving stark comparisons of the poor and rich schools and communities, Stockman writes:
So much for fairness in school funding in Indiana.
I was at a meeting a few years ago where the presenter, after wowing the audience with several demonstrations, remarked, "It's fun food for the mind!" A lot of the links I share on Educators' News seem to fall into that category. Sometimes they don't fit neatly into a standards and test driven curriculum very well, but they are things that stimulate student interest.
The Children's Museum in Indy also has some nice units of study available. About Online Courses Todd Finley has posted an informative interview on his blog on Edutopia, Ten Questions for an IDT Guy: Teachable's Trey Martindale on the Future of Online Teaching. Martindale talks about some of the ins and outs of online education and creating online courses. Anyone who creates or takes online courses or works with one of the current course management systems (CMS) such as Moodle and Blackboard will probably find some gems in the brief interview. Also see: For a Good Smile If you have a chance, but sure to read Valerie Strauss's The best commencement speeches that never happened. The commencement address Kurt Vonnegut actually gave is a riot. Free Stock Photo Site
As of yesterday, the site showed 13,309 photos available for download! I looked at some of his flower photos from a photographer's point of view, and then some of his insect photos, thinking they might be of more use in the classroom. Sam obviously does good work. While Pics4Learning will probably remain my favorite free photo site, Photos8 is definitely one you might want to bookmark for future reference when hunting good illustrations for the classroom. Nerdy Photographer Comment (and some sneaky embedded advertising): Sam works with a Canon EOS 40D Odds 'n' Ends Algebasics looks like it might be a helpful site with narrated tutorials that should be appropriate for upper middle to high school. Here are some news links from the last few days:
By midnight last night, any good feeling about the schedule change was totally gone, as I had zip to put up for today. I was already searching some of my favorite fillers, such as the Astronomy Picture of the Day, just to have something to post. In the wee hours, I took a look at the weekly eSchool News feature, Site of the Week. Goldmine! They had reviewed three definite "keepers" over the last few weeks with one site leading to yet another good site. After asking myself how I'd missed this stuff for so long, I wondered how I'd get four great sites reviewed in time for this morning's posting. And that's why we're a bit late with today's posting. This stuff takes a bit of time to look through. And...I spent a lot of time listening to old music recordings! National Jukebox
Not wanting to just take the eSchool News article at face value, I poked around the Jukebox's Sousa recordings early this morning, enjoying favorites such as Stars and Stripes Forever and the Washington Post march. Teachers (and webmasters looking to pad their postings) may appreciate the ability to embed the recordings into their web pages or CMS/LMS courses. Something that would make the Jukebox a bit more useful would be a short description, or a link to one, about the content of each recording. Lacking that information, I tried Wikipedia and found the Sousa poster shown here illustrating their entry about Stars and Stripes Forever. And the little boy in me was glad Wikipedia included an "other lyrics" section with the well known parody that "was sung at the end of every episode of the popular 1960s TV series Sing Along with Mitch."
Marianne Wartoft's Educational Freeware site is a dandy for technology oriented but cash strapped teachers. Waltoft writes on her about page:
To check to see if she was giving readers the real stuff, I followed her links to K-12 reading sites and a was pleased to find the tried and true Starfall site second on her list. She also includes features stories such as Ryan Dube's 6 Great Educational Websites With Blank Maps for Teachers and 6 Great Websites With Money Games for Kids. Tech Tools Site
I looked at Computers (acquiring, managing, and tips), Tips for Integrating Technology into Your Classroom, and their listings for K-5 Math tools (sites) and was impressed, if a bit overwhelmed, with their listings. Their advice on getting started with computers in the classroom show some experience in the area and good common sense. Like any links site, K-12 Tech Tools is at the mercy of the sites they link to. Sites change URLs, go down at times, and generally can make life miserable for those linking to them. For the fun of it, I took their K-5 Math tools page out for a test drive with my link checking software and was pleasantly surprised to find that K-12 Tech Tools runs a tight ship. There were no dead links! Free Tutorials
When I test drove a few of the packets, I found the quality a bit variable, despite high ratings from the education person on the Sophia staff. Some packets were excellent, others just so-so, and some were downright skimpy. When I followed the Space Sciences link, I found no lessons were available (yet) in that category. Obviously, Sophia is a learning community that has some growing to do. I've included it here as it appears that it may grow into another good source for teachers. Odds 'n' Ends Hey, how's that for a politics-free Friday posting. Have a great weekend!
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