Art, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Extra Mile

The Art History class took off for Italy last week. It’s well over 4,000 miles from Poughkeepsie to Zurich and on to Florence but here’s the extra mile: Wayne created these books – in Florentine red – one for every student. It’s for notes,sketches and reference on the trip. The sleeve at the back has a map of the city…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Where are the adults? Leadership and responsibility in the digital world.

Teacher of the Year Anthony Mullen has another excellent Road Diary post today.  At Kent State University, Ohio,  he walks down a grassy slope looking back at the spot where, almost forty years ago, the National Guard stood in line to confront student war protesters.  And then the  fatal 13 seconds that left four students dead. Those Guardsmen and the…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Advanced Pressure and the Race to Nowhere

Advanced Pressure – Video Library – The New York Times video.nytimes.com The problem with Advanced Placement classes and how they are destroying the lives of high school students. This video features students and educators from the film Race To Nowhere – a film that takes a look at education, childhood and the unintended consequences of the achievement and test obsessed…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Truthy quotes: The best and the bogus

A good quotation is like the perfect tweet – short, pithy, memorable, wise and wonderful. The the tip of an iceberg of meaning it captures something much bigger than itself with a few well chosen words in the right order. No wonder then we have all become addicted to the quotation as token of our thinking. the shorthand signal for…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Data fatigue gets the measles

Some sanity on data excess from the always interesting Seth Godin: Too much data leads to not enough belief. Business plans with too much detail, books with too much proof, politicians with too much granularity… it seems as though more data is a good thing, because data proves the case He’s not dissing data but rather the over reliance on…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Children’s Machine: How children take to technology

A second grader needed a place to hang out and my office was available. The conversation went somewhat like this: “Make yourself at home. I’ve not got much for you to do but there are a few toys and books if you want.” “Do you have a spare laptop?” “No sorry, I don’t.  But what a good idea.” “What sort…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Carrot and the Cattleprod

Many years ago I wrote an article with the title The Carrot and the Cattleprod.  It’s so long ago that although I wrote it on a word processor I no longer have an electronic copy.  It’s buried and yellowing deep in a file cabinet somewhere in the basement. So I don’t know where it is but I do remember what…

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