CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: It's Not Normal Until It's Not New Edition (4/19)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: It's Not Normal Until It's Not New Edition (4/19)

It's Not Normal Until It's Not New Edition 

In other words, there's no such thing as a new normal. But here we are anyway. Have some reading to pass the time.

My Transition To Emergency Remote Teaching
As always, I would like to be as smart as P. L. Thomas when I grow up. Here, while reflecting on his own transition, he offers insight on what is or is not right with remote teaching.

A Dozen Good Things That Could (Just Maybe) Happen As A Result Of This Pandemic    
Nancy Flanagan has some optimistic thoughts about where we could end up when all this is done.

No, Everyone Is Not Homeschooling Now  
From the blog a Potluck Life, a few thoughts from a homeschooler about how to just relax about this whole schooling at home thing.

Are charter schools public or private?
Jan Resseger takes a look at the recent attempts by charter schools to identify as public or private depending on which designation brings in the most money.

David Berliner: Hoe Successful Charter Schools Cull and Cream
Berliner is one of the top academics looking at ed reform. Here he is guesting at Diane Ravitch's blog to offer some insights into how, exactly, charter schools control which students they serve.

Teachers Could Retire In Droves
Andre Perry looks at what might happen if teachers decide that this is just the last straw and looks like a good time to finally retire.

What Teaching Looks Like Coronavirus  
Well, I'll be. Some reporters at NPR decided to talk to actual teachers about the effects of the pandemic pause. Imagine that.

Google classroom app flooded with 1-star reviews
Students have one way to voice their opinions during crisis schooling.

No, this is not the new normal
Robert Pondiscio checks in at the Fordham blog with some level-headed thinking from the reformster side of the tracks. No, remote learning is not about to become the primary form of US schooling.

Screens and worksheets aren't the answer
Rae Pica takes to Medium to stand up for sensible education ideas for the littles.

What a Global Pandemic Reveals about Inequity in Education  
Christina Torres on Medium to alk about the big fat underlining of inequity that has occurred under the current crisis.

Online Learning Should Return To A Supporting Role
The New York Times offers this from David Deming: "Winner-take-all economics and cost-cutting may make many in-person lectures obsolete, but the best education continues to be intensive, expensive and done in person."

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: It's Not Normal Until It's Not New Edition (4/19)

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Why Teach Literature? The Whole Collection

46by Peter Greene / 1d

I created a series of posts about the teaching of literature, and they ended up being sprinkled here and there. I thought I would just pump them out one after another but after I got started--squirrel!! So for those of you how enjoyed them, I'm putting this up to collect links to all of them in one place so that you can get to them more easily, should you ever wish to. I know these aren't as enter

APR 17

Why Teach Literature Stuff #7 Everything Is Reading

31by Peter Greene / 2d

When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here). Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive

APR 16

Why Teach Literature Stuff: #6 Not For These Reasons

55by Peter Greene / 2d

When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here). Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive

Arne Duncan Smells Katrina 2.0

41by Peter Greene / 2d

Arne Duncan said a lot of silly things while he was secretary of education, but perhaps most infamous was his notion that was that Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing" to happen to education in New Orleans. But now he's starting to make similar noises about the current pandemic pause. Here he is in an interview at the 74 : I don’t want us to go back to the old normal. And there’s a whole bunch o

APR 15

Demonstrating Why Business Ideas Don't Help Public Education (Example #3,244,781)

300+by Peter Greene / 3d

As always, let me say up front that I don't hate the free market and business, and that I believe there are things that they do pretty well. But the free market does not belong within six-to-ten feet of public education (or health care or basically anything that involves taking care of human beings, but let me try to retain some focus here). We are living through yet another demonstration of the w

APR 14

Florida's Troubled Cyber School Launches Alaskan Spinoff

40by Peter Greene / 4d

So Alaska's teachers were just getting themselves set up to handle distance learning, when their governor pulled the rug out from under them. He'd had a chat with everybody's favorite failed Presidential candidate and education-busting former governor Jab Bush, who suggested that Alaska would be an excellent fit for Florida's Virtual School. No, really. I wish I were making this up. But I'm not--i

APR 13

FL: Court Delivers Another Blow To Public Education

500+by Peter Greene / 5d

Florida's HB 7069 is the gift that just keeps on giving. Or rather, taking. This cobbled-together Frankenstein's monster of a bill included a variety of methods for draining the blood from public education, and one of its most astonishing pieces of legalized theft was just upheld by the court. The bill was shepherded through by then-House speaker Richard Corcoran; he's now the state's education he

APR 12

Happy Easter

23by Peter Greene / 7d

I love Easter, love it better than Christmas. I have decades of Easter traditions piled up, and of course, today, none of them will happen. I love tradition, but on the other hand, tradition can become an enabler, a means of just sleepwalking through life. I love tradition, but I always told my yearbook students that they were not allowed to make any decisions about the book "because that's what w

APR 11

What Do We Want To Measure When We Get Back?

85by Peter Greene / 7d

I have railed against this for years, but now it's apparently time to take the railing up a notch. Lots of folks are worried about--or at least pretending to be worried about--the notion that students may lose a step or two during the coronahiatus, and that's reasonable concern. Every teacher knows that September, not April, is the cruelest month, the month in which you discover just how much info

APR 10

This Is Why You Need A Secretary of Education With Classroom Experience

500+by Peter Greene / 8d

Betsy DeVos has been pretty much no help at all during the pandemic closing of schools. The US Department of Education has offered next to no guidance to public schools on how best to navigate the current storm. Imagine a country where, in the face of a major disruptive health crisis that cuts acro

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