Big Education Ape: 11-16-13 Radical Scholarship

mark as read

“Fahrenheit 451″ 60 Years Later: “Why do we need the things in books?”

“Sometimes writers write about a world that does not yet exist,” Neil Gaiman begins his Introduction to the 60th Anniversary Edition of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: This is a book of warning. It is a reminder that what we have is valuable, and that sometimes we take what we value for granted…. People think—wrongly—that speculative fiction is about predicting the future, but it isn’t; or if it is, it tends to do a rotten job of it…. What speculative fiction is really good at is not the future but the present—taking an aspect of it that troubles or is dangerous, and extending and extrapolating

100+ 4d

The Poverty Trap: Slack, Not Grit, Creates Achievment

Poverty is a trap children are born into: No child has ever chosen to be poor. Children have never caused the poverty that defines their lives, and their education. Yet, the adults with political, corporate, and educational wealth and power—who demand “no excuses” from schools and teachers serving the new majority of impoverished children in public schools and “grit” from children living in poverty and attending increasingly segregated schools that offer primarily test-prep—embrace a very odd stance themselves: Their “no excuses” and “grit” mottos stand on an excuse that there is nothing they

500+ 6d

Are Common Core and Testing Debates “Two Different Matters”?

A comment posted on my blog about union support for Common Core (CC)—which parallels my blog post about Secretary Duncan and the Obama administration’s support for CC—represents a typical response coming from standards advocates in the CC debate: “You can’t combine the issue of high stakes testing with the common core [sic] they are two different matters.” Alfie Kohn in January 2010 argued against national standards in Education Week; I then offered a direct rejection of CC in the same publication in August of 2010. A few others took early stances against CC, such as Susan Ohanian (whose work

100+ 11d

YESTERDAY

empathyeducates – the kindness school

empathyeducates – the kindness school (beyond the archeology of white people, pt. 2).

2 by plthomasedd / 22h

Education Reform Guide

In her “Diving into the Wreck,” the speaker of Adrienne Rich’s poem explains, “the sea is another story/the sea is not a question of power.” Critical response to this poem often includes some ambiguity about just what the wreck constitutes in the poem, but the speaker is clear about her purpose: I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came to see the damage that

9 by plthomasedd / 22h

remnant 40: “is in the touching”

remnant 40: “is in the touching”.

by plthomasedd / 1d

NOV 14

Demanding ‘no excuses’ of schools and ‘grit’ of poor children… | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com

Demanding ‘no excuses’ of schools and ‘grit’ of poor children… | Get Schooled | www.ajc.com.

by plthomasedd / 2d

21st Century Numbers Games

21st Century Numbers Games.

by plthomasedd / 2d

NOV 13

Learning and Teaching in Scarcity: How High-Stakes “Accountability” Cultivates Failure

Learning and Teaching in Scarcity: How High-Stakes “Accountability” Cultivates Failure.

1 by plthomasedd / 2d

NOV 12

the everyday motion of artifacts: The 451 App

the everyday motion of artifacts: The 451 App (22 August 2022).

by plthomasedd / 3d

NOV 11

Is Mainstream Media Hiring from Write for America?

Is Mainstream Media Hiring from Write for America? via Is Mainstream Media Hiring from Write for America?.

by plthomasedd / 4d

Kurt Vonnegut’s Children’s Crusade: Kindness

In a 2004 Paris Review interview, Haruki Murakami explained: I liked to read Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan while I was a college student. They had a sense of humor, and at the same time what they were writing about was serious. I like those kind of books. The first time I read Vonnegut and Brautigan I was shocked to find that there were such books! It was like discovering the New World. Mura

10 by plthomasedd / 4d

remnant 39: “Lou Reed was massively important to ‘Island of Misfit Toys’ kids”

remnant 39: “Lou Reed was massively important to ‘Island of Misfit Toys’ kids”.

by plthomasedd / 5d

NOV 08

From Spellings to Duncan: Using NAEP as Policy Propaganda

While Secretary of Education (2005-2009), Margaret Spellings announced that a jump of 7 points in NAEP reading scores from 1999-2005 was proof No Child Left Behind was working. The problem, however, was in the details: During President George W. Bush’s tenure, NCLB was a corner stone of his agenda, and when then-Secretary Spellings announced that test scores were proving NCLB a success, Gerald Bra

17 by plthomasedd / 7d

Learning and Teaching in Scarcity: How High-Stakes ‘Accountability’ Cultivates Failure | Alternet

Learning and Teaching in Scarcity: How High-Stakes ‘Accountability’ Cultivates Failure | Alternet.

by plthomasedd / 8d