It's Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... A VERY BUSY DAY | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

It's Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... A VERY BUSY DAY | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

“What Was Your Best Math Lesson?”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

What Was Your Best Math Lesson? is the new “question-of-the-week” at my Ed Week Teacher column. Feel free to leave your comments there or here…

Most Popular Posts Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

I’m making a change in the content of the regular feature. In addition to sharing the top five posts that have received the most “hits” in the preceding seven days (though they may have originally been published on an earlier date), I will also include the top five posts that have actually appeared in the past week. Often, these are different posts. You might also be interested in IT’S THE TWELFT

Advice For Us – & Our Students – On Making New Year’s Resolutions

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

geralt / Pixabay I’ve always found that doing a lesson on New Year’s resolutions has been helpful for my classes when we return from Winter Break. You might find The Best Ways To Help Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Succeed useful.

Here Are Eight Different Ways To Subscribe To This Blog – Daily Or Monthly

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

harshahars / Pixabay There are many different ways you can subscribe to this blog for free. If you want to join the eighteen thousand people who receive daily posts, you can: Subscribe by a RSS Reader . One popular RSS Readers is Feedly (though there are many others). You can read about Feedly in this New York Times guide . Probably about 15,000 people read this blog through the RSS feed. Subscri

Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. You might also be interested in THE BEST RESOURCES ON CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION IN 2019 – PART TWO. Here are this week’s picks: How Other Countries Handle Impeachments, And What The U.S. Can Learn From Them is from NPR. I’m adding it to THE BEST TEACHING &

Wash. Post Published My Education Decade In Review AND Predictions For Next Ten Years

by Larry Ferlazzo / 17h

ivanovgood / Pixabay A teacher assesses the past decade in K-12 education — and makes 9 predictions for the 2020s is the headline of my latest piece for The Washington Post. By the way, you can see over two-hundred articles I’ve written over the years here , as well as checking out The Seventeen Best Articles I’ve Written About Education.

Pins Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 21h

I’m fairly active on Pinterest and, in fact, have curated 20,000 resources there that I haven’t shared on this blog. I thought readers might find it useful if I began sharing a handful of my most recent “pins” each week (I’m not sure if you can see them through an RSS Reader – you might have to click through to the original post). You might also be interested in MY MOST POPULAR PINS OF 2019 The f

This Blog’s Twenty Most Popular Posts From The Decade!

by Larry Ferlazzo / 22h

It seems like everybody’s doing “decade-in-review” posts (see The Best “Decade In Review” Compilations) . In fact, The Washington Post will be publishing my own review of the decade’s big education news in the next day-or-two, as well as my predictions for the next ten years. In the meantime, I thought readers might be interested in seeing my blog’s most popular posts from this past decade. Note

The Terrible Indian Ocean Tsunami Occurred On This Day Fifteen Years Ago – Here Are Related Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo / 22h

Juhele / Pixabay The terrible Indian Ocean tsunami struck on this day fifteen years ago. You might be interested in The Best Resources To Learn About The Indian Ocean Tsunami (On Its Five-Year Anniversary) , which also has resources that were created on its tenth anniversary. Today marks 1⃣5⃣ years since the Indian Ocean tsunami struck. On a partnership with @UNDRR_AsiaPac @UNESCAP @UNESCO & @WMO

“We Need to Help ‘Students Recognize the Brilliance They Already Have'”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

We Need to Help ‘Students Recognize the Brilliance They Already Have’ is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. In it, Ten educators wrap up a five-part series on ways to look for the positive, instead of the 

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Charter schools vs teachers union: A high stakes L.A. school board election takes shape - Los Angeles Times

Charter schools vs teachers union: A high stakes L.A. school board election takes shape - Los Angeles Times

Charter schools vs teachers union: A high stakes L.A. school board election takes shape

 

The candidates are confirmed and the upcoming Los Angeles school board races are all but certain to make for a high-stakes election cycle that will pit teachers and their allies against backers of charter schools for influence over the nation’s second-largest school system.

The March election, in which four of the seven board seats are up, comes at a critical juncture for the L.A. Unified School District, which is struggling to make progress academically against the backdrop of budget problems and political instability. District leaders have been focused on raising low student achievement, especially among black and Latino students, and are looking for ways to help low-income families meet basic needs for students’ healthcare and food, as well as family housing.

The campaigns will be the first since a new state law gave school boards more power to deny petitions for new charter schools. Charters are privately operated, taxpayer-funded public schools, most of which are non-union. The new law amplifies the pressure on school board campaigns that have been the most expensive in that nation.

“The upcoming election is crucial for charter backers,” said Charles Kerchner, professor emeritus at Claremont Graduate University, who has written extensively about L.A. Unified. “New state laws give local districts greater discretion in denying petitions for charter schools, and they limit the appeals from local school boards to  CONTINUE READING: Charter schools vs teachers union: A high stakes L.A. school board election takes shape - Los Angeles Times

Betsy DeVos: the billionaire Republican destroying public education | US news | The Guardian

Betsy DeVos: the billionaire Republican destroying public education | US news | The Guardian

Betsy DeVos: the billionaire Republican destroying public education
Cuts, attacks, rollbacks – the education secretary’s campaign to dismantle America’s public system has continued unabated

Betsy DeVos has become accustomed to hostile audiences. The House of Representatives’ education committee earlier this month was no exception.

“When you approach a public school, you are protested,” the Democratic congresswoman Frederica Wilson told the education secretary. “When you enter, you are booed. You are the most unpopular person in our government. Millions will register to vote in 2020. Many will vote to remove you more than to remove the president.”

It was a rare moment of clarity in the constant swirl of drama in Washington – border wall, Russia, partisan warfare, media bashing, tweets, impeachment – that seems to provide cover for Donald Trump’s cabinet secretaries to escape scrutiny. Chief among them is DeVos who, critics say, is quietly and insidiously destroying public education in America.

DeVos’s record is proof, they argue, that when the smoke of the Trump presidency finally clears, the substance of his legacy on policy, deregulation and stacking the courts will remain – and take far longer to repair.

“We’ve had plenty of Republican as well as Democratic secretaries of education but none of them, even those who believed in alternatives to public education, actually tried to eviscerate public education,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Here is someone who in her first budget tried to eliminate every single summer school programme, every single after-school programme, and who has done everything in her power to try to make it harder for us to strengthen public [sector] schools.”

A billionaire philanthropist, DeVos, 61, attended a private Christian school in Michigan and sent most of her children to private Christian schools; she has CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos: the billionaire Republican destroying public education | US news | The Guardian

Teacher Tom: That Older Me Is A Real Jerk

Teacher Tom: That Older Me Is A Real Jerk

That Older Me Is A Real Jerk

As a boy, I dreamt of being a super hero, Batman in particular. I suppose I would have rather been Superman with his flying and extraordinary strength, but I understood enough about reality to know that those powers were impossible, whereas the more mortal abilities of Batman actually seemed attainable. Children dream all kinds of things, but even then, even as I planned my future as a costumed crusader, I limited myself according to what I knew about how the world worked. It would be several years before I came to realize that even the abilities of Batman were beyond mere mortals.

I wonder sometimes if that dream of being a force for good in the world didn't in some way inform my choice to become a teacher. I mean, after all, I'm still the same human being who wanted to be Batman, just older and wiser. Of course, that boy me might look at things quite differently. If he were able to see the man I've become, he might well feel that I've sold out my younger self. Not only am I not Batman, but I'm not a professional baseball player, I'm not a hippie living in a free CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: That Older Me Is A Real Jerk

CURMUDGUCATION: Big Brother U & The Surveillance State

CURMUDGUCATION: Big Brother U  The Surveillance State

Big Brother U & The Surveillance State

If you missed this article at Washington Post about on campus surveillance of students-- well, congratulations on having one less troubling thought in your head over the past week. Because the surveillance is continuing its slow, steady advance. Now technology lets colleges monitor their students 24/7. Yay.

This particular article focuses on a company called SpotterEDU, and they are creepy as hell. The main part of their is a quick, easy technofix for taking attendance. Students are required to download the app (this also means, though the article is so tech forward it doesn't even address these issues, that students are also required to carry an up-to-date cellphone and keep it fully charged at all times) which then "checks in" with Bluetooth beacons in classrooms on campus (or anywhere else the beacons are planted).

Bluetooth beacons were supposed to be the Thing Of The Year in 2016, the tech that was going to put coupons on our phones when we approached a certain product and which would unlock doors as we walked closer. As with virtually every big tech promise of the last twenty years, it hasn't exactly arrived yet. If the function of Bluetooth in my home is any indicator, I'm guessing we have a few bugs to work out yet.

That seems to be the case for some students, who report in the article that they get in fights with the tech about whether or not they were really absent or late to class. yay, computer technology-- usually almost doing of what it's supposed to do, sort of. As the SpotterEDU Terms of Service say, its CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Big Brother U & The Surveillance State

A teacher assesses the past decade in K-12 education — and makes 9 predictions for the 2020s - The Washington Post

A teacher assesses the past decade in K-12 education — and makes 9 predictions for the 2020s - The Washington Post

A teacher assesses the past decade in K-12 education — and makes 9 predictions for the 2020s

Veteran educator Larry Ferlazzo writes annual lists of what he considers the best and worst education news — for which you can find links below — as well as predictions for the year ahead. This piece is something new.

Here, Ferlazzo, who teaches English and social studies at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, looks back on the past 10 years in the world of education and evaluates what happened, for, in his view, good or ill — plus one event he can’t yet categorize. Following this assessment are predictions he is making for the 2020s.

His lists are not in any order of priority.

Ferlazzo is well-known in the education world, having written or edited 12 books on education, and authoring a teacher advice blog for Education Week Teacher and his popular resource-sharing blog.

He encourages readers to leave their own reactions and thoughts in the comments. Ferlazzo is sure he has missed a lot!

BEST EDUCATION NEWS OF THE DECADE

Grass-roots teacher organizing became energized

Beginning with the Chicago Teachers Union strike, led by then-union leader Karen Lewis in 2012, to the 2018 West Virginia teacher strike which, in turn, led to strikes across the country, teachers and their unions successfully fought for fair compensation and increased resources for students and their families.

Effective Social Emotional Learning took hold in many of the nation’s schools

Through research and practice, educators have recognized the importance of supporting the social and emotional growth of students, and acknowledging that they are intertwined with academic growth. Concepts and strategies such as a growth mind-set, goal-setting and encouraging intrinsic motivation are being integrated in curriculums throughout the country. Importantly, some unhelpful efforts seem CONTINUE READING: A teacher assesses the past decade in K-12 education — and makes 9 predictions for the 2020s - The Washington Post

Sights and Sounds of the Season and The Importance of the Arts in Public Schools

Sights and Sounds of the Season and The Importance of the Arts in Public Schools

Sights and Sounds of the Season and The Importance of the Arts in Public Schools

This is a good time to think about the arts. The visuals and sounds of the holidays, art, music, and drama, surround us. It’s a reminder that children need access to learning about the arts in public schools.

The arts help children learn in academic areas. They keep children interested in school. The arts alone are important to learning and might lead to a career. Here’s a list of art jobs.

I recently watched the movie Elf. Afterwards, they showed how they made the movie. Those involved in creating the unusual set, the props, and ambience described how they created illusion on the set. From designers and make-up artists, to the music and the sounds that make the movie unique, everyone had special preparation.

Set designers understood the importance of color. They knew how to calculate the CONTINUE READING: Sights and Sounds of the Season and The Importance of the Arts in Public Schools

The Best Book of 2019 – Kochland | tultican

The Best Book of 2019 – Kochland | tultican

The Best Book of 2019 – Kochland

By Thomas Ultican 12/26/2019

This may be the finest book thus far in the twenty-first century. Kochland; The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America is the second book by former agribusiness reporter for the Associated Press, Christopher Leonard. His first book, The Meat Racket; The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business received rave reviews; however, Kochland is uniquely special. It is an economic history of America since 1967 that shows the deep changes in our economy that have given rise to a new kind of capitalism. Kochland is told through the lens of Koch Industries whose “annual revenue is larger than that of Facebook, Goldman Sachs, and US Steel combined.”

Leonard weaves an epic tale of brilliance, philosophical intransigence, greed and ruthlessness. Over almost 600 pages, this enjoyable read clearly elucidates many of the troubling outcomes from the last 50 years like the rolling blackouts in California and the destruction of the labor movement.

Fred Koch, the family patriarch, graduated in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1922. In 1927, he won a patent for an improved petroleum refining process. Do to legal issues surrounding his patent, Fred ended up working in Stalin’s Russia between 1929 and 1932. This experience informed his extreme anti-communist views. He later joined with Robert Welch and a group of businessmen to form the virulently anti-communist John Birch Society. In 1960, he published the pamphlet “A Businessman Looks at Communism” in which he claimed that the National Education Association CONTINUE READING: The Best Book of 2019 – Kochland | tultican

"Two North" – A true Christmas story | Eclectablog

"Two North" – A true Christmas story | Eclectablog

“Two North” – A true Christmas story

“Two North” is a story about a Christmas when I was in grade school during a period when my mom was spending time on the psychiatric ward of our town’s hospital after trying to commit suicide to escape a physically-abusive husband. I was thirteen. It was a cataclysmic event in our lives but it brought us together into a two-person tribe like no other event ever has in my life.

I offer this story each year to my friends here at Eclectablog on Christmas as a tribute to my mother, a woman who went from being a pregnant sixteen-year old to retiring as an executive for the Chrysler Corporation in the short span of twenty years.

Much of who I am today is because of her and the lessons she taught me.

This may be read as a sad story, one full of tragedy and unhappiness. But, at the end, it’s story about the power of love to fill our lives in the midst of unhappiness and the unbreakable bonds between family members, whether it’s your biological family or, as Armistead Maupin calls it, your logical family.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

“Two North”It was Christmas night and I was warm and felt very comfortable. Maybe the most comfortable I had felt in a long time. I wasn’t in my own bed but that was okay because my mom was there and I hadn’t seen her in awhile and it was nice to be with her. I was only thirteen but when I look back on it, it seems like I was older and I guess I was in some ways. Older than I should have needed to be, I suppose.
I was laying in the darkness, mesmerized by a spacey lamp, the kind you find in head shops or at Spencer’s Gifts, designed especially for moments like this. Christmas was over and, although my memory of the day itself is lost in the fog of time, I have a vivid and distinct memory of the little bits of colored light going up and down and around and around the lamp.
We had spent the day with my aunts and uncles at my grandparents’ house. My mom, Jacki, was pretty fragile and, although she was glad to be there with her mother and father and brothers and sister, she was just as glad when they all left and she could escape to the safety of the upstairs bedroom. We had gone up together and tucked into our beds, just single mattresses on the floor. My grandparents kept their house a sweaty 75 degrees and upstairs it was more like 80. But that night, the warmth felt good and comforting and safe. We laid there in the dark, unable to see each other in the dim light coming from the spacey lamp in the corner, and talked for what seemed like hours.
It had been a crazy few months leading up to this night, for sure. That summer she had gotten married to John, her fourth husband. Shortly after the wedding, he proved that his tendency to CONTINUE READING "Two North" – A true Christmas story | Eclectablog