CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: What Day Is This Edition (3/29)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: What Day Is This Edition (3/29)

What Day Is This Edition (3/29)

I feel like retirement gave me a head start, but yes-- after a while, the days kind of blend together. Still, we have some reading from the week. Remember, share safely.

The Biggest Obstacle To Moving America's Public Schools Online
Susan Adams, my editor at Forbes, takes a look at some of the problems with just tossing school onto the interwebz.

Baghian and Vallas candidates for LA state ed chief job
The indispensable Mercedes Schneider shows us once again that there is no failure that some of these reformsters can't walk away from, their reputations and careers intact and rising. Why the hell would anyone hire Paul Vallas? It's a mystery.

Misreading the main idea about reading
God bless Paul Thomas for repeatedly wading back into the current iteration of the reading wars, and thank heavens he's willing to add his expertise to the conversation.

What do we need to teach now?
A reminder from Deborah Cohan at Inside Higher Ed that we shouldn't get so distracted by the challenging how of the current situation that we lose sight of the what.

Where left and right agree on civics education.
From Education Next, a fairly well-balanced look at where the left and the right do and don't disagree when it comes to civics education.

Physical distance, social collective mourning
A personal dispatch from the JLV in NYC, where pandemic death has already hit the education community in the gut.

Online education is not winning over college students
One of the seventy-gabillion notes this week that some folks do not love the computer fed education life. From Hechinger Report.

Online Privacy Concerns
From EdWeek, a compendium of the many privacy concerns being raised as everyone rushes hook students to screens.

How about a national teacher plan?
Nancy Flanagan and friends with some important thoughts about this crisis-forged moment of opportunity. If we could rebuild from scratch, what would we build...?

Real learning in a virtual classroom is difficult 
Chris Lee, writing for Ars Technica, opens with a quote from his wife, a high school English teacher: "Remote teaching sucks. It's yucky, and it's not the future of education." He ends with a quote from one of his kidfs-- "I fucking hate it." In between some pretty thoughtful stuff about why this is not the future.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: What Day Is This Edition (3/29)

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Why Teach Literature Stuff: #4 Books Versus Video

by Peter Greene / 22h

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

When Tech Makes Educational Decisions

29by Peter Greene / 1d

"The internet is a bad place. Young people really shouldn't use it at all." The speaker was not some cranky parent or enraged luddite. It was the guy in charge of maintaining the network in my high school. In other words, the guy responsible for making sure it was possible for our students to access the internet. This was many years ago, but it slapped me upside the head with the realization that

MAR 27

Business and Humanity (When People Tell You Who They Are)

40by Peter Greene / 1d

It has been a central conflict in education for decades now. Should education be organized around the needs of the business world, guided by the invisible hand in service to The Economy. We've heard it over and over again. Business is the customer for the product created by schools, so schools should be organized around cranking out the kinds of meat widgets that corporations want . And while we'r

MAR 26

Why Teach Literature Stuff: #3 Knowing Stuff Is Useful

54by 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

MAR 25

Where Is Teaching's Dr. Fauci?

300+by Peter Greene / 3d

There are Dr. Fauci fan clubs already thriving around the country, in honor of the physician who has managed to thread the thorny needle that is being a nation's medical guide in these challenging times. He's a trusted voice, an expert in his field. He's a reminder that "leading US physician" is a thing, like the Surgeon General is a thing. So where is the Dr. Fauci for teaching? This came up in a

Why Teach Literature: #2 Humanity

61by Peter Greene / 3d

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

MAR 24

Protecting Students In The Screen Age: An Action Tool For Parents And Teachers

28by Peter Greene / 5d

It has been just a month since this piece ran at Forbes.com, but what a month. In some ways, the protections for students regarding screens are even more important. It has been a decade since I was introduced to the idea of a 1:1 classroom—a school in which every single student carried a computing device—and I never regretted it for a moment. Having those tools always at my students’ fingertips w

MAR 23

Why Teach Literature Stuff: #1 What Is It?

21by Peter Greene / 5d

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

The Ed Tech Vultures Circle

47by Peter Greene / 5d

Some ed tech companies and their investors are busily imagining that the coronaviral hiatus may be their Katrina. Natural disaster plus government botch job equals the board being swept clean, allowing players a golden opportunity to move in and clean up. I see folks on Twitter wondering where Betsy DeVos is, why the USED isn't offering more guidance to schools as they navigate this mess. Could be

MAR 22

Virus and Vouchers

35by Peter Greene / 6d

US education has essentially ground to a halt. Districts have announced that no work done distantly will count, largely out of fear that they cannot properly serve IEP students and therefor distance schooling would be illegal (aka "likely to prompt a lawsuit from a special ed family's lawyer). Where distance learning is occuring, the gap between haves and have-nots is being highlighted as it grows

ICYMI: Stay In Place Edition (3/22)

by Peter Greene / 7d

Well, here we all are, in place (except for some of you who think this is a fake and some of you who think nothing should interfere with spring break). Frankly, the reading this week has been a bit....well, repetitive. But here are some things to peruse while you're holding down your couch. An Open Letter To Seniors Louisiana's teacher of the year has some thoughts for high school seniors, whose b

MAR 21

AI Is Not Going To Drive Trucks (Or Your Classroom)

32by Peter Greene / 8d

From Jalopnik, we get this report from the world of self-driving truck s. Mark it the gazillionth cautionary tale for folks who believe that AI will be able to take over critical human functions any time soon. The article takes a look at Starsky Robotics, a company that was in the business of producing unmanned semis for public highways. Now it's just in the business of shutting down. The co-found

MAR 20

Don't Ever Forget How Much Some Folks Hate Public Education

30by Peter Greene / 8d

Interesting piece this week in the Washington Post , penned by Stuart Stevens , a GOP non-Trump fan consultant with a book coming out. The whole piece, about how the GOP has morphed into the kind of party ripe for something like 

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