Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Shift in New Brunswick

This video was produced by the New Brunswick, Canada, Department of Education. It reflects their thinking about our rapidly changing world, the future of education and the needs of their students. At PDS we are always thinking about our students and how to serve them best. As you watch the film – what are your thoughts about education, our children,…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

More Educator Luddites Please

Part two of:  The Age of Bricolage: School in the Change Blender: Technology is always disruptive: Think of the introduction of the printing press, or the combine harvester, or the typewriter. Think of the mechanical looms and the factory system of the industrial revolution that destroyed a way of life for cottage industry weavers. Some of them took to frame…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Age of Bricolage: School in the Change Blender

When everything around is changing so rapidly that it feels like living inside a blender on high speed, habits and traditions can be comforting. As the year rolls along in any school there are the dates on the calendar – love them or dread them, those ceremonies, and celebrations – that are familiar, anticipated and taken for granted. And then…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Help is available: Advice for new teachers

Advice (random and very incomplete) for new teachers: Please round out the list with your thoughts: Sign on to Twitter. Follow the smartest people you can find in your areas of interest. Build a great PLN – personal learning network – of the wisest and most helpful people you can find. Follow people with whom you agree and those who…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

What the dickens?

Looks like the new UK education minister is channeling Thomas Gradgrind: Pupils must learn about Miss Havisham, says Minister They don’t know enough facts, he says. Maybe it’s the fact that Mr. Gibbs does not know enough about Charles Dickens, the age of information and learning theory. Not to mention that his frame of reference is remarkably narrow. When politicians…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Life on the Farm

Learning about Sprout Creek Farm is a big part of the kindergarten curriculum but what exactly are they learning?  Readers of this blog know I am a  supporter of all things kindergarten but some things just go too far. Take this morning for instance. In the active play area hay bales and straw were being hauled by the pulley into…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Everyone is cranky

A school in May is like a two year old deprived of a nap.  That’s how my colleague Liz describes it. Everyone is stressed out, too busy and cranky. The weather is unpredictable with storms and frost one moment and sunshine and blossoms the next. The calendar is stuffed with culminating events, showcases, performances, final assessments, report writing deadlines and…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Digital literacy across the curriculum

It’s not about the tools and the testing, it’s about the learning and the thinking. Digital literacy is an important entitlement for all young people in an increasingly digital culture. Every school should have an organized policy for language across the curriculum… Two documents, two eras. The first from FutureLab (UK) – a wonderful introduction to, and handbook for, digital…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

The wild front ear

If blogging is supposed to have an element of timeliness then  I have given up on that ideal.  After all – I am still writing about stuff from the NAIS annual conference  in February. Fess Parker died in March and while my mind went instantly to the Davy Crockett craze of my childhood, it’s only now that I have found…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

“If a school fulfills its mission there must be constant evolution…”

It is quite possible that the assigning of grades to school children and college students as a kind of reward or punishment is useless or worse… I’ve discovered an absolute treasure trove of fascinating material: Popular Science has put its entire 137 year archive on line. The quotation above is from Examinations, Grades and Credits by Professor J.McKeen Cattell of…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Transformation: Diane Ravitch and School Reform

“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ” I’ve always respected Diane Ravitch even as I have often disagreed with her.  And her on-line and ongoing exchanges with Deborah Meier Bridging Differences have been a model of intelligent debate conducted with an informed  civility conspicuously absent from most…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Ruben’s Tube: Dancing Fire

Click for an UPDATED version of this experiment and with a great new video. It’s always great when a student or a teacher sends along a report, picture or a video of something cool going on in the classroom. Or, as in this case, a cool experiment during vacation. This is a first attempt at creating a Ruben’s standing wave…

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