Remember Rafe Esquith? The unconventional teacher who wrote the book “Teach Like Your Hair is on Fire.”
You may enjoy this interview he did with Teacher Magazine posted last week. Check it out here.
Reminder: I am putting together a few stories about “teacher heroes.” Let me clarify because I received an emphatic email saying that we don’t [...]
Entries from August 31st, 2009
Do you teach like your hair is on fire?
August 31st, 2009 1 Comment
Tags: Rafe Esquith · Teach like your hair is on fire · Teacher Magazine
Teacher Heroes
August 27th, 2009 No Comments
I was thinking today about teacher heroes!
The thought came to me after reading a news account about an alert teacher who tackles a student with pipe bombs and thwarts a major disaster. Story is here.
But…I got to thinking about teacher heroes who get no ink. Can any readers share a hero story of how a [...]
Tags: heroes · Students · teacher heroes · teachers
The “silver bullet” for education?
August 26th, 2009 No Comments
Over at AASA’s blog “The Leading Edge” there is a blog post briefly describing the Gates Foundations “half a billion dollar” carrot dangling in front of a small handful of schools and districts trying to find the “silver bullet” in education.
When will we ever realize their is no “one best method” of educating all youngsters!
Or [...]
Tags: educational grants · Gates Foundation · school improvement · school reform
Why do teachers have dents on each side of their head?
August 24th, 2009 3 Comments
In Lee Jenkins book, Permission to Forget, he explains why teachers have dents on each side of their head.
It is from getting hit on the head by the pendulum that swings from one extreme to the other in education.
Let’s see how many examples we can come up with.
How about the Reading Wars. The constant debates [...]
Tags: education · professional development · teachers
Study shows online education students do better than those in traditional face-to-face
August 20th, 2009 1 Comment
A recent meta-analysis of 99 different studies of online education, reports that students in online classes on average - score in the 59th percentile versus students in face-to-face courses that score in the 50th percentile.
Full report here.
If you prefer to read an article about the report, you can read that here.
While the study included some K-12 studies, [...]
Tags: online education
Asia Rising - U.S. Decline…Really?
August 17th, 2009 No Comments
Over the decades, U.S. education reform efforts have largely been driven by U.S. paranoia over losing world economic dominance.
Remember Sputnik? When Americans thought Russia was going to beat them to the moon it drove NASA to the moon and it brought with it an emphasis on Math and Science.
Then it was Japan that was the [...]
Tags: Asia · economic policy · eduational policy · education reform · India · stadrdized testing
Another teacher leaves the profession early…
August 10th, 2009 4 Comments
The Washington Post recently ran this op-ed piece about another young teacher leaving the profession.
This story is way to common. However, it seems to fit in with our recent discussions about teacher education programs in some ways. Are we really preparing educators for what awaits them? Excerpt follows….
The teaching itself was exhilarating but disheartening. There [...]
Tags: administration · education as a career · education preparation · new teachers · school administration · teacher colleges
What do you think about teacher preparation programs?
August 7th, 2009 11 Comments
Recent reports have criticized teacher preparation programs (some of those reports are mentioned here) spawning a variety of efforts to provide alternative certification and more rigorous content preparation.
In a recent national advisory committee meeting I attended for the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) I observed first hand the variety of opinions held by superintendents [...]
Tags: alternative licensing · certification · teacher colleges · teacher licensing · teacher preparation
Update on Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF)
August 6th, 2009 No Comments
As some of our readers would already know, Barack Obama and Arne Duncan have made “teacher incentive compensation” a centerpiece of their education reform efforts. Millions have been set aside in the budget for piloting various teacher compensation plans that have accountability and assessment requirements built in.
Education Week has a few updates on it here [...]
Tags: merit pay · performance pay · teacher incentives · TIF
