RattleBag and Rhubarb

Fly a plane to the future

Launch your ideas into the future. This is the Million Futures site where you see a blue sky, fluffy clouds and circling paper planes. Each plane contains an answer to one of the questions representing people’s views on the future of education and the skills that will matter. Read a few, launch your own. It is part of a joint…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

What’s your favorite word?

What’s your favorite word and is it in this dictionary yet?  If not, then consider making a personal contribution. Meanwhile – take a look, see and listen to the contributions so far in Wordia And don’t worry – there are lots more words to go. The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Giving Thanks

So many things to be thankful for. PDS gave traditional Thanksgiving thanks at the all-school celebration on Tuesday. Groups gathered to eat, hear a story and re-connect. Older students from the high school led the way – served the food, read the story and then brought everyone together in the JEJ theater a for a poem by Langston Hughes and…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Teen Time Online: An interesting study

A high school parent writes: I think we knew this already (“study shows teens’ use of digital media show that America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online – often in ways adults do not understand or value”) but it’s nice (especially as a parent) to be reassured. The study in question  can be found here in versions…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Advice from Jules Feiffer

Work hard at what you are passionate about. Read lots of books. There was more, but that was how Mr. Feiffer opened his talk last Thursday. What a treat to hear him talk about his creative process and answer questions – mostly from children- about his life and work. How did he get started? Well – by telling bedtime stories…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Leadersheep are real

I’ve posted about leadersheep before and now I have heard from an Icelandic shepherd with more information. “Flannelberry” – who started a blog Flannelberry Farm (Small-scale farming, self sufficiency and all things considered…) – writes: I am a shepherd with an Icelandic flock and came across your blog while googling “leadersheep”. There are indeed leadersheep – a specific line within the…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Rigor versus Rigor Mortis

First and foremost, I look for someone who asks good questions…We can teach them the technical stuff, but we can’t teach them how to ask good questions—how to think. Clay Parker, president of the Chemical Management Division of BOC Edwards. What’s your answer to the question: What skills do we need to be teaching in the 21st century? To get…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

“And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds”.

Ninety years since the end of the First World War. Passengers at Paddington station on Armistice Day, 11 November 1919. stopped for two minutes silence to remember those who never returned. Most of the men have taken their hats off out of respect. Over 25,000 Great Western Railway workers were killed in the war. Railway companies commemorated the end of…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Train your Brain: The Science of Learned Optimism

I had the pleasure today of hearing Shawn Achor speak on the topic of happiness and the science of positive psychology and school success. Just as there is learned helplessness there can also be learned optimism. It’s all to do with mirror neurons and other good brain stuff. Happiness can be a choice – a bracing antidote to doom and…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

It’s a Different World

Thank you for bringing John Palfrey to the school last night. He was fabulous, and he spoke directly to issues facing my family and our children – PDS parent. It was election eve for the parents and community discussion. And an election day workshop for PDS teachers and colleagues from other New York independent schools. The pictures above are of…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Pumpkins Carved and Monsters Made

All-school activity groups carved their pumpkin and dressed their senior monster for the all school annual traditional Halloween pumpkin lighting and senior monster fashion parade.. And a lower school Halloween assembly

Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

College Paying Admitted Students to Re-Take the SAT: Say what??

Some colleges are paying members of the freshman class to retake the SAT’s. Administrators claimed that they were merely giving admitted students a chance to burnish their records and win so-called merit scholarships. But it seems more likely that Baylor’s marketing team was trying to drive up the school’s test scores — and move it up in college rankings, like…

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