Big Education Ape: SCHOOL

Showing posts with label SCHOOL. Show all posts

Monday, January 18, 2021

Be True to Your School | Teacher in a strange land

Be True to Your School

It’s an early Saturday morning coffee-meeting on Zoom. All of us are teacher leaders—what we have in common is awards for our good teaching. What brings us together is a mutual commitment to supporting both public education in our state and the teachers who hold this threatened enterprise together.

Some of us have left the classroom after long careers and moved on to new challenges, but we know that our observations matter little on this day, as the American republic itself seems to be on shaky ground. What we want to know is: What are the kids saying? How are the kids doing? Are they OK?

Of course, they’re not.

Our colleagues working in the classroom talk of their utter mental and physical exhaustion—every week like the first week of school, instructional mastery honed over years now replaced by calling students at home to ask: Are you still in my class? Is anyone in your family sick? Do you have enough to eat?

All I can think is ‘Thank God students have teachers like these.’ Teachers who understand students’ context. Teachers who care. Teachers who are a bulwark against isolation and fear.

One of the teachers mentions talking with her students—cautiously, but necessarily— CONTINUE READING: Be True to Your School | Teacher in a strange land

Friday, December 18, 2020

Another “School” of the Future | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Another “School” of the Future

Steve Davis, a reader of the blog, told me of this Isaac Asimov story published in 1951 about teaching and learning in 2155. I thought readers who saw the previous post on “Schools of the Future” would enjoy this as much as I did.

Margie even wrote about it that night in her diary. On the page headed May 17, 2155, she wrote, Today Tommy found a real book!

It was a very old book. Margie’s grandfather once said that when he was a little boy his grandfather told him that there was a time when all stories were printed on paper.

They turned the pages, which were yellow and crankily, and it was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of moving the way they were supposed to – on a screen, you know. And then, when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it that it had had when they read it the first time.

Gee, said Tommy, what a waste. When you’re though with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television screen must have had a million books on it and it’s good for plenty more. I wouldn’t throw it away.

Same with mine, said Margie. She was eleven and hadn’t seen as many telebooks CONTINUE READING: Another “School” of the Future | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Monday, December 14, 2020

CURMUDGUCATION: Schools, Supposedly, Have Caused the Fall of US Religion

Schools, Supposedly, Have Caused the Fall of US Religion

The Christian Church has been suffering a steady and rapid decline for a few decades now, a trend noted by many social scientists, and a source of struggle within many churches that are looking for ways to fill newly-emptied pews. You can look at many data sets on the subject. The folks at Pew Research find that there's a stark generational factor; in the Silent Generation and Baby Boomer cohort, those who call themselves Christian are a vast majority (84% and 76% respectively), but only half of Millennials describe themselves as Christian.

It's a complicated phenomenon, and carries a little existential weight in a country that many folks like to think of as a Christian nation.

So what's the answer?

Religion News Service offers ten reasons, including prosperity that distracts people from faith, lack of compelling religious leaders, the end of Sunday as a "protected" church day, and the "wired" world. Many writers point out that US numbers are still higher than European ones. Focus on the Family says it's all okay, because evangelicals are gaining. Ross Douthat at the New York Times kind of agreed, suggesting that it's "lukewarm Christianity" that is declining. Christian Smith, a sociology and religion professor at Notre Dame, pointed at three historical events driving the precipitous post-90s plunge: the end of the Cold War, 9/11, and the political team-up of the GOP and the religious right. Researcher Jean M. Twenge found a sharp drop in religiosity among teens; we might come back to her findings in a moment.

Or maybe we won't bother, because Cameron Hilditch over at the National Review has solved the CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Schools, Supposedly, Have Caused the Fall of US Religion