Why can’t they be like we were? Perfect in every way? What’s the matter with kids today?* BYE BYE BIRDIE (The Musical) (Music by Charles Strouse / Lyrics by Lee Adams) Technology Literacy and the MySpace Generation That’s the title of an article by Susan Mclester in Technology and Education (March 15, 2007) It includes the following: Listening to the…
The Indian National Curriculum Framework opens with this most telling childhood anecdote from the poet Rabindranath Tagore: When I was a child I had the freedom to make my own toys out of trifles and create my own games from imagination…One day in this paradise of our childhood, entered a temptation from the market world of the adult. A toy…
It was University of Toronto English professor Marshall McLuhan who predicted universal connectivity. Listen to this archival interview from April 1965 where he predicts a future for education saying that: “in the future people will no longer only gather in classrooms to learn but will also be moved by “electronic circuitry.” How far are we along on this path? McLuhan…
“It is easier to change the course of history than to change a history course”. “Proposals for change in schools are often met with a thousand points of no“ Liz, Julie and I are at the NAIS annual conference in Denver. We were joined by Trace who gave a great presentation yesterday. (On that, more later). The theme of the…
Educators are fond of commenting that children are natural scientists. Children, they say, are born investigators. Discovery, speculation, questioning, trying things out, testing their senses, trial and error, and exploration – that’s what small children do all day. It’s how they learn and how they play. Curious then that these natural scientists are so often turned off by science as…
In a recent interview with the PDS media I was asked for my opinion of some of the pressing issues of the day. The journalists arrived well prepared with questions and then posed for my camera.
Last night in his State of the Union address President Bush outlined proposals to extend the NCLB (“No Child Left Behind”) law. These ideas are outlined in this White House policy memo. There has been a growing chorus of concern about NCLB and this proposed extension of its impact does nothing to allay those fears. Here are two alternative sources…
It’s the end of semester – a time for thesis papers, exams, tests, reports and etc. The demands on high school students are relentless. Clearly it is time for some serious fun: the Annual High School Talent Show aka Poise, Noise and Joys. Some corny jokes, lots of music, and even a Shakespeare sonnet. This was an event produced by…
The impulse toward pleasure can be self-defeating. We fail to attain pleasures if we deliberately seek them. This is the essence of what the moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick in the The Methods of Ethics called the paradox of hedonism. This came to mind as I was considering the necessity for all of us to be resourceful, self-sustaining learners for life. Learning doesn’t…
Colleges are still on winter break. Nathan, Luke and Matt dropped by to say hello.
“What have you planned for professional development day?” The starting point was this question from Andrea Archer – head of school at Duchess Day School. The outcome was Robert Fried who came to PDS yesterday and worked with the faculty from the two schools. Am I in a room with Passionate Teachers? That was how Rob began his presentation yesterday.…
The Welsh have one word for it: dysgeidliaeth. It means teaching and it means learning. And of course that is what good teaching is: learning. But how to pronounce it? Any speakers of Welsh out there who can help out?