THE BECOMING RADICAL
Radical Scholarship
Secretary Duncan and the Politics of White Outrage
Setting Free the Books: On Stepping Aside as Teaching
GUEST POST: Let’s Nurture Inner-Directed Students and Ignore the “No Excuses” Crowd, John Thompson
Setting Free the Books: On Stepping Aside as Teaching
What Is Only PISA Stat that Matters?.
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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
While film critics have offered mostly negative reviews of This Is 40, I have watched all and then parts of the film multiple times during its run on cable TV because I am drawn to the scenes that include the children (who in real life are writer/director Judd Apatow’s children with lead actress Leslie Mann). In one scene, the older daughter, Sadie (Maude Apatow), charges into the kitchen and unleashes a profanity-laced diatribe onto her parents. Many years ago, my daughter did the same to my wife and me, and when the two of us burst into laughter, my daughter stomped upstairs to her room, dou
Let’s Nurture Inner-Directed Students and Ignore the “No Excuses” Crowd John Thompson Early in my career, Latifa taught me an important lesson about the teaching of noncognitve skills. Latifa’s dress-for-success style and leadership made it easy to forget her unhappy childhood in foster homes. When she got up, shut both doors, and walked to the front of the classroom, it was my time to take a seat in a desk. Latifa often did this when she and her classmates were angry about something at school that offended their senses of fairness. Once they had their say and articulated solutions, Latifa
DEC 04
remnant 41: “poor Americans are urged to hate themselves”
remnant 41: “poor Americans are urged to hate themselves”.
More on Failing Writing, and Students
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, I taught English in the rural South Carolina high school I attended as a student. Many of those years, I taught Advanced Placement courses as part of my load (I taught all levels of English and usually sophomores and seniors) and was department chair. Over the years, I worked hard to create an English department that served our students well. We made bold moves to p
DEC 03
Why Are We (Still) Failing Writing Instruction?
We have two recent commentaries that detail how schools and teachers fail students in the teaching of writing—one comes from a college student and the other, from a former teacher. While both reach the same conclusion about the teaching of writing, the reasons for those failures are in conflict, suggesting that we must consider whether schools and teachers are fumbling the teaching of writing, and
End Zero-Tolerance Policies: A Reader
What do zero-tolerance policies, “no excuses” practices, and grade retention have in common? They all negatively and disproportionately impact children from poverty, minority children, English language learners, and boys; and nearly as disturbing, all are discredited by large bodies of research. Is the tide turning against at least zero-tolerance policies? Lizette Alvarez reports: Faced with mount
DEC 01
Belief Culture: “We Don’t Need No Education”
“Four in 10 Americans, slightly fewer today than in years past, believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago.” This December 2010 poll also includes the finding that a scant 16 percent of the U.S. populace accepts evolution without any hand of God involved. [1] The U.S. is unique compared to the rest of Western world, which tends to accept evolution, but the comparison i
NOV 30
Should SC Increase Charter School Investment?
Charter school advocates are calling for more investment from South Carolina, according to Jamie Self at The State (Columbia, SC): South Carolina’s public charter schools struggle to find and pay for space, and often end up without access to kitchens, libraries, or places for kids to play – a problem the S.C. General Assembly needs to address, according to a new report. The challenges that the sta
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Setting Free the Books: On Stepping Aside as Teaching
DEC 03
NOV 30
Should SC Increase Charter School Investment? | the becoming radical
Should SC Increase Charter School Investment? | the becoming radical