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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‘the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do’ - The Washington Post

‘the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do’ - The Washington Post

'25 years in teaching and this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do’

Larry Ferlazzo, a veteran high school teacher in Sacramento, has been tweeting about his experiences teaching online during the coronavirus pandemic that shut down most schools in the country and sent kids to learn at home — and inviting other teachers to share theirs. He is finding a general meeting of the minds: Meaningful online teaching that began virtually overnight with little to no preparation or training is just plain hard.

It is even harder, according to social media posts Ferlazzo has solicited, for teachers who have children at home who need their attention to help with their own school work. And even worse, according to some teachers, for those who have no reliable Internet access at home.

For example, Cheryl Bost, a fourth-grade teacher who is president of the Maryland State Education Association, said some teachers who live in remote areas are getting in their cars and driving to the parking lots of schools or libraries or even McDonald’s to get Internet access.

“One teacher has two kids of her own, and she is teaching in the car while her own two kids are doing their own lessons in the car, too,” she said.

Ferlazzo has a large following on social media (@Larryferlazzo) and popular education blogs, which you can find here.

Recently, Ferlazzo posted two tweets about how hard online teaching is in these circumstances and here are some of the replies, which reflect reports across the country about the difficulties many teachers are now facing. CONTINUE READING: ‘the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do’ - The Washington Post

Silicon Valley Leverages Pandemic-Induced Poverty To Advance Pay For Success Finance – Wrench in the Gears

Silicon Valley Leverages Pandemic-Induced Poverty To Advance Pay For Success Finance – Wrench in the Gears

Silicon Valley Leverages Pandemic-Induced Poverty To Advance Pay For Success Finance

Waves of crises and disasters, often engineered, have made it hard for most to see the sweeping changes the Fourth Industrial Revolution has in the works. Namely the billionaires’ plan to hand entire job sectors over to robots and algorithms, forcing millions into poverty. Dispossessed of their means of economic support the masses can be more readily transformed into “social impact” data commodities, compelled to navigate an augmented reality police state “game,” otherwise known as “smart” cities.

In the wreckage of the global economy, who’s coming out ahead? Forbes reported ten billionaires netted $51 billion in a market rebound that ended April 9. Among them were tech oligarchs Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg. Indeed they will be well-positioned to invest in the human capital bonds the Federal Reserve will be promoting in the coming years.

As the 2015-2035 timeline of Global Education Futures predicts, portfolios of the future will be portfolios comprised of people. Indeed last summer Microsoft filed a patent at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to mine crypto-currency through bodily activity, including brain waves. Great, so perhaps we won’t simply be portfolio items, but actual batteries creating wealth for predators from our human essence. Just like the Matrix. Please, someone get me of this ride that is “stakeholder capitalism.” CONTINUE READING: Silicon Valley Leverages Pandemic-Induced Poverty To Advance Pay For Success Finance – Wrench in the Gears

Help! I Can’t Read! | Teacher in a strange land

Help! I Can’t Read! | Teacher in a strange land

Help! I Can’t Read!

Reading is my greatest pleasure in life. Well, one of my greatest pleasures.

There’s music, and the Lake Michigan beaches and my family and my daffodils and a few other personal items on that list. But I absolutely love to read.

My idea of a perfect afternoon is a good book and a glass of wine and either a toasty fire or a shady patio. We travel west every February for a few weeks of Arizona sunshine, and I usually log a dozen or more books that month, fiction and non-fiction. This year, I read 15, before a looming pandemic chased us back across the country and home.

So you would think I’d be buried in books during the enforced home stay, tucked up and cozy, in my quiet household. But no.

I am finding it incredibly difficult to read books. And I am not alone.

According to Christian Jarrett, PhD, a clinical psychologist based in the U.K.:  “Research shows that chronic stress affects the way the front of the brain works—the area…[that] normally controls our ability to concentrate and switch attention from one thing to another.” Simply put, during something as stressful as living through a global pandemic, “we lose our usual mental flexibility and become highly focused on the source of the threat,” making it difficult to lose yourself in another world.

Which makes sense. Because it is not that I am finding it impossible to read. It’s that CONTINUE READING: Help! I Can’t Read! | Teacher in a strange land

EdAction in Congress April 19, 2020 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress April 19, 2020 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress April 19, 2020

Another COVID bill is in the works

NEA continues to work with Congress to highlight priorities for students, educators, public schools, and communities in additional COVID legislation now taking shape. Those priorities include immediate needs like funding as well as long-festering problems ranging from the homework gap to student loan debt. We are also urging lawmakers to see the current crisis for what it is: a wake-up call, not a passing storm. Like 9/11 and the Great Depression, the coronavirus crisis is destined to have a lasting impact on our way of life. Now is time to renew America’s promise of equal opportunity and justice for all. TAKE ACTION

As part of COVID relief, cancel student debt

In a letter led by NEA, more than 30 organizations urged congressional leaders to include student loan debt cancellation in any future COVID-19 relief package. Interest in the issue is sky-high—nearly 2,000 people logged on for an NEA webinar on the issue. The average educator begins a career with about $35,000 in student loan debt. The Student Debt Emergency Relief Act (H.R. 6363), introduced by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), would cancel at least $30,000 of outstanding student loan debt, boosting consumer spending and reducing the financial strain on educators and other borrowers. TAKE ACTION

Cheers and Jeers

Thirty-five senators signed a letter urging Senate leadership to include in future COVID-19 legislation “language that ensures proper training and protection for workers on the front lines”—ideally, by requiring the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) voiced support for a short-term increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in the next COVID-19 assistance package. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have listed SNAP benefit increases as priorities for the next bill, as have many other Democrats.

EdAction in Congress April 19, 2020 - Education Votes