You would think, given my demographic and political leanings (woman in her 50s who thinks that, on the balance, it’s good that the ACLU exists), I would not be a fan of single-sex education. But you would be wrong. My...
Interesting discussion on the Teacher Leaders Network, kicked off by a TLN member who just held her 90-year old mother’s hand through a minor medical crisis—and had time, in the waiting room, to wonder about the array of medical specialists...
I’m tired of writing about technology, but technology keeps inserting its hard, shiny tentacles into my thoughts. I just went to see Iron Man, and even while watching cars being crushed and Rob Downey Jr. experiencing unrequited lust with Gwyneth...
Around the Teacher Leaders Network, I have a reputation as an unrepentant Luddite—probably because I have wondered out loud if Twittering just might be overrun by twits, and have expressed my opinion that lots of the technology crusted on learning...
Every now and then, someone will take a critical potshot at Ruby Payne, whose “Framework for Understanding Poverty” and interactive professional development workshops are enormously popular with schools trying to engender “cultural competence”—which might be loosely defined as the ability...
I’m not much of a flag waver, really. I always thought that author James Baldwin captured my feelings precisely in Notes of a Native Son when he wrote: I love America more than any other country in the world, and,...
Ever heard of the Documentation Generation? Great article in Newsweek about our growing technology-driven urge to create and display images: Here’s Looking at You, Kids (Jennie Yabroff). Yabroff covers lots of fascinating thought-territory in the piece, from the evolution of...
Two weeks ago, my local newspaper, the Livingston County Press-Argus, reprinted one of my blogs as a Sunday editorial. It was a piece whose core message can be summed up in a single sentence:We need to improve schools in Michigan,...
I once had a colleague who showed Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure every year, at some strategic point, to her sixth grade social studies students, under the rationale that it was--duh--about history. This was a big hit with the kids,...
Last night, I attended a fabulous community meeting--the kind of gathering which restores your faith in mankind to solve our common problems. Part of an initiative called Michigan's Defining Moment, it was an assembly of community leaders across my county:...
