Big Education Ape: 11-23-13 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness by P. L. Thomas, EdD

THE BECOMING RADICAL:

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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+ 13d

“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+ 11d

Secretary Duncan and the Politics of White Outrage

Social media and even mainstream media appear poised to leap on Secretary Arne Duncan with both feet due to his swipe at white suburban moms. The nearly universal sweeping outrage—some with a level of glee that must not be ignored—calls for close consideration itself. First, rejecting Duncan’s comments about white suburban moms and Common Core critics is completely valid. I join hands with the education community in rejecting Duncan’s claims, his discourse, and his efforts to discredit a significant, credible, and growing resistance to CC that should not be trivialized and marginalized as Dunc

100+ 6d

YESTERDAY

A Moment In Ncte History – Ncte Annual Convention Boston, 2013

A MOMENT IN NCTE HISTORY – NCTE ANNUAL CONVENTION BOSTON, 2013 Paul Thomas, Council Historian Delivered at the Board of Directors Meeting, 2013 National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention “Not the Time . . . to Follow the Line of Least Resistance” Honoring our history allows us to acknowledge that we all stand on the shoulders of giants. For those of us teaching English, we recall no

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NOV 21

Secretary Duncan and the Politics of White Outrage

Secretary Duncan and the Politics of White Outrage.

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NOV 20

The New York Times in an Era of Kool-Aid Journalism

With Advertisements for the Common Core, the Editorial Board at The New York Times has offered its special brand of Kool-Aid journalism to the careless claim that 2013 NAEP data somehow prove education reform is a success: The country is engaged in a fierce debate about two educational reforms that bear directly on the future of its schoolchildren: first, teacher evaluation systems that are taking

by plthomasedd / 2d

English Journal, a flagship publication from NCTE, is currently under the outstanding editorship of Julie and David Gorlewski—who have followed the stellar work of the previous editor, Ken Lindblom. I want to urge special attention to the current issue: English Journal, Vol. 103, No. 2, November 2013—Choices and Voices: Teaching English in a Democratic Society. As well, I must highlight some of th

by plthomasedd / 3d

NOV 19

The Duncan Debacle: It’s Not (Just) about Duncan

If Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has prompted outrage from a wide range of people, as Rebecca Klein reports, by invoking “white suburban moms,” as I have noted, the controversy is much more complex than “clumsy phrasing.” I remain adamant about my concluding point concerning the racial components of Duncan’s comment and the responses to it: If white outrage is the only outrage that counts in

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An Arne Duncan Reader: Let’s Have that Conversation

An Arne Duncan Reader: Let’s Have that Conversation.

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3 People Outraged By Arne Duncan’s ‘White Suburban Moms’ Comment

3 People Outraged By Arne Duncan’s ‘White Suburban Moms’ Comment.

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