The Great Stuff In Public Schools That Tests Can't Measure
For me one of the goals of my teaching is character education - to help my students learn how to behave with respect towards themselves and each other.
I want to prepare them to be participating citizens in our liberal democracy - and those two words are technical political science terms that describe our system, regardless of how they may offend conservative Republicans.
Thanks to my friend Diane Ravitch and her blog, many of us know the tale posted by education blogger and teacher Jersey Jazzman.
Read this post, whose title I have borrowed.
Or if you prefer, read this news story upon which Jersey Jazzman relies and to which he links.
Allow me to quote his final two lines:
Some things should not be negotiable
I want to prepare them to be participating citizens in our liberal democracy - and those two words are technical political science terms that describe our system, regardless of how they may offend conservative Republicans.
Thanks to my friend Diane Ravitch and her blog, many of us know the tale posted by education blogger and teacher Jersey Jazzman.
Read this post, whose title I have borrowed.
Or if you prefer, read this news story upon which Jersey Jazzman relies and to which he links.
Allow me to quote his final two lines:
I'll say it until the day I die: I am proud to be an American public school teacher. I am proud
Some things should not be negotiable
I wrote what follows seven months ago. I am reposting it now because I think the concerns I expressed then are particularly relevant as we go forward with fiscal cliff, debt ceiling, and other issues on which we are not sure what the administration might do. There do have to be limits to our support beyond the idea that the other guys are worse.
I have been active in politics since i was an adolescent, a period now of more than 5 decades.
I have often been willing to support politicians with whom I had some strong disagreements on the issues, perhaps because I believed they were as good as we were likely to get.
As I get older, the world seems to go by far more quickly. And while I do not have biological children, I think of the future in terms of the several thousands who passed through my care before i retired from teaching at the end
I have been active in politics since i was an adolescent, a period now of more than 5 decades.
I have often been willing to support politicians with whom I had some strong disagreements on the issues, perhaps because I believed they were as good as we were likely to get.
As I get older, the world seems to go by far more quickly. And while I do not have biological children, I think of the future in terms of the several thousands who passed through my care before i retired from teaching at the end