Public Educatioin

January 27, 2013

Casino Capitalism vs. Educated Hope

As always, thanks to John F. for reminding me of an article that I put on my to-read list and forgot about. Very well worth the read. …Against the dystopian visions that drive the new extremism, there is a need… Continue reading

January 25, 2013

1/23/13 – 7th period, Honors Calculus

I am a high school student and have recently started to record my experiences in class as my school day progresses. I cry out silently, listening to my deepest thoughts and emotions echo off of the tender, stone walls of… Continue reading

January 24, 2013

What is Interdisciplinary Communication?

How can we make sense of different perspectives on the same subject? How does what I learn about, say, environmental problems in my science class relate to what I learn about them in my philosophy class? Can professors from different… Continue reading

January 22, 2013

Howard Gardner: Digital Technology and A Well-Rounded Education | DMLcentral

As digital technologies become daily staples in both our personal and professional lives, there’s been much discussion among educators and community leaders as to whether these devices and innovations could in some way be accountable for shifts in the ethical… Continue reading

January 20, 2013

What’s Worth Learning: How Outdated Curricula are Failing America’s Students

Cut through the hype and the ideology-driven political rhetoric and it’s clear that, decade after decade, institutional performance nationwide changes little. Even schools considered models and pointed to with pride—upscale, beautiful, well-staffed, shipping high percentages of their graduates off to… Continue reading

January 10, 2013

Mindfulness or Fearfulness

“Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly.” -William Shakespeare There is a great deal of viciousness & dis-ease in the United States of America: poverty; mental disorders; drug addiction; bigotry; compulsive obsessive consumption of sex, violence, food, celebrity, television, etc… Continue reading

January 9, 2013

Young people are screwed… Here’s how to survive

Wow. This is a really good piece that is totally worth a read. And then a reread. And then maybe a further read. If you are someone who entered adulthood in the last few years, you are a Generation Y… Continue reading

January 8, 2013

Standardized Tests Not Justin Bieber are Destroying our Culture

I do not have kids of my own. But I pay school taxes like anybody else who owns propert or rents an apartment. [Yes, Matilda… if you rent an apartment, a portion of your rent obviously goes to school taxes].… Continue reading

January 7, 2013

No Local – Why Small-Scale Alternatives Won’t Change The World, Greg Sharzer – Zero Books Blog

Thanks to my good brother Joseph Carr for passing this book review along. …This is not a book about the successes and challenges of a particular community garden or biodiesel scheme. That research is important, but it’s already been done:… Continue reading

January 4, 2013

Improving Leadership Through Connected Learning |

Creating your own personal learning network (PLN) is what authentic education is all about: being open to your possibility by engaging your situation with what others are doing in the world. This goes hand in hand with the the 7… Continue reading

December 23, 2012

Social Class & Dividends for the Educational Industrial Complex

Thanks to my ever vigilant colleague Carl Beck Sachs for pointing the article below out to me. I had seen it in my “topic alert:pedagogy” from the NYTimes, but did not know if I wanted to read it. I’m glad that… Continue reading

December 22, 2012

MOOCs as capital-biased technological change

Last week my Twitter feed briefly turned into a kind of massively open online course about MOOCs, in response to this thoughtful critique by Aaron Bady of an earlier post by Clay Shirky advancing an optimistic view of the role that… Continue reading

December 20, 2012

Deep Springs College: the school for cowboys gets ready for cowgirls | World news | The Guardian

I know a really wonderful young man who just finished up his first few months at Deep Springs. I hope that we will soon get to talk about his experiences. The same year that Lenin’s Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace,… Continue reading

December 18, 2012

Henry A. Giroux | The War Against Teachers as Public Intellectuals in Dark Times

…In the name of austerity, schools are defunded so as to fail and provide an excuse to be turned over to the privatizing advocates of free-market fundamentalism. In this discourse, free-market reform refuses to imagine public education as the provision… Continue reading

December 17, 2012

The End of the University as We Know It – Nathan Harden – The American Interest Magazine

One of the biggest barriers to the mainstreaming of online education is the common assumption that students don’t learn as well with computer-based instruction as they do with in-person instruction. There’s nothing like the personal touch of being in a… Continue reading

December 15, 2012

CALL ME MAGGIE