Housekeeping and A Research Link

I'm sorry we didn't get to fully discuss the Strike chapter last night. I've talked with Lauren; she will start our next class with her remaining Strike questions, then we will move on to the new stuff. Bring your Strike book!

Also, I ran across The International Portal of Teacher Education today. It's a clearing house for ed research related to teacher education. You can find summaries and abstracts of research articles, but then have to track down the full text articles yourself (but there's often a link). I thought it may be useful as you look for additional articles for class or for other research.

The Intellectual Lives of Teachers

Is there one?

I am not suggesting that teachers are not smart people, but I know that teaching can be extraordinarily dull, intellectually speaking. There's an irony here, as many people go into teaching because they love a certain subject and want to share it with others.

This blog post from Social Issues ostensibly talks about why teachers would want to contribute to an open access curriculum wiki when they have so much else to do. I think the argument Waks gives, however, says a lot about the intellectual life of teachers.

What do you guys think?

Nice reflections on My Pedagogic Creed

Saturday was the anniversary of the initial publication of My Pedagogic Creed.

Here's a nice look at it from the Education Policy Blog. (I'm a big fan of the blog in general).

A Petition to Raise the Bar

http://www.goodbyeminimallyadequate.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
This is a petition to remove the words, "a minimally adequate education" from our state constitution regarding current educational standards in SC and replace them with, "a high quality education, allowing each child to reach his greatest potential." Please take a moment to sign the petition if you agree with its intent.

The issue of school discipline

I found this article concerning the diminishing of school discipline. It is about eight years old, but it addresses some key facts as to why discipline is so much more difficult to instill in schools these days.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_2_who_killed_school_dis.html

Going further into consequentialism

Yesterday in class we talked about some different aspects of consequentialism. I found this link that discusses consequentialism in terms of ethics and decision-making.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Ethics-and-Decision-Making-in-Education&id=857935

Career and Technical Education

I left our last class meeting with the feeling that many misconceptions about Career and Technical Education remain. CTE is not training to be a plumber, electrician or carpenter. CTE is not the 'not college' alternative for students. CTE is for everyone.

South Carolina is rapidly moving towards Career Clusters in all public high schools. There are 16 career clusters, groups of occupations and broad industries based on commonalities. By the end of the 8th grade, every student will declare a career cluster that influences the classes each will take in High School. To further emphasize this point, even the students that know they are going on to college will be enrolled in a career cluster and take courses that will expose each to the opportunities available in that group of occupations or industries.

There are many benefits to this type of program in high school that include a lower drop out rate for students, a program of study that allows a student to take more classes in areas that interest the student, it provides a path for students that will not continue to a college education to have a path to becoming an economically successful citizen, and it provides a base of education for those students that will continue on to college education. These benefits have the potential to make an immense positive impact for many SC high school students. Dewey would surely approve of the experiential learning that goes on in these programs, even though the experiences are in the domain of one career cluster.

There is a detrimental consequence to this type of program, because it comes at the loss of a broad, liberal education for high school students. This is a serious matter, as none of the career clusters appears to include this type of educational experience as an option. Bloom would definitely have issues with this lack of opportunity for our students. I do not know how to remedy this aspect of high school education in SC.

Details about the career clusters can be found at http://www.careerclusters.org/ and on the SC Department of Education Institute for Career and Technology Education Administrators at http://ed.sc.gov/agency/offices/cate/instituteinfo.html

Radical Revolt

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080402/od_nm/school_plot_dc

Just when you thought it was safe to teach elementary school.....

Georgia Says NO to single-gender classrooms!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-03-26-ga-school-segregation_N.htm

Dropout Article Link

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/01/school.grad.rates.ap/index.html?iref=newssearc

Single Genger Classrooms

I remember reading where someone had posted a blog about single gender classrooms....I ran across this and thought it was interesting.

http://ed.sc.gov/news/more.cfm?articleID=934

This is a good article that discusses traditional vs. progressive education:

http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.16209/article_detail.asp

This is an opinionated article because the author is greatly in favor of the traditional form of education. He believes that progressivism has much more potential for failure rather than actual progress.

Law Presentation

http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/freedomsindex.aspx

This is a great sight I found. Thought you guys might want to check it out. There are all kinds of court cases posted in an easy format.

Media Literacy

http://www.frankwbaker.com/
This is a fantastic resource for any teacher. Frank W. Baker is a media literacy advocate who has created this website. It is loaded with information as well as tips on how to use the information to help children think more critically and become more media aware.

Aesthetics

I thought that this article was interesting. It's about the value of art education and how it can be interperted. I wonder how a Marxist would reply to the ending statement that, "art is the lie that is made true". The book says that Marxists believe that, "truth is dependent on the concepts that one's culture makes available" (47). Is our value of art controlled by the dominate culture or are our views on art and beauty of our own conception?

http://www.vusst.hr/ENCYCLOPAEDIA/aesthetic.htm

Replacement of the PACT?

Here is a link discussing the replacement of the PACT test in South Carolina by the approval of a bill by the S.C. House:

http://www.thestate.com/education/story/329931.html

This should offer some relief to those of us concerned about standadrized testing in this state.

School reform law changes in the works?

This article is a couple of weeks old, but it touches on something we should all be concerned about, proposed educational reforms. To see this article, click on:

http://www.thestate.com/education/story/300556.html

Bloom in a nutshell.

http://www.gotterdammerung.org/books/reviews/c/closing-of-the-american-mind.html