Tagged: schooling

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Imagine…. (a poem about school)

Imagine a classroom where there is no teaching                                                      only learning. Imagine a classroom where there is no leader only...

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School’s Out Forever

I’m still plugging away on my book, tentatively titled “School’s Out Forever” – a play on the famous cry of the immortal Alice Cooper, “School’s Out For Summer“. My idea is to think fresh, think anew and have a grasp that exceed’s my reach. To...

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Low Impact Teaching

Over the last 5 to 10 years, I’ve been developing new ideas about how we should be teaching in our classrooms.   These ideas have changed as the possibilities and promises of educational technology have become reality. The most fundamental of these ideas are always...

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What is your metaphor?

Metaphors are powerful things for teachers.  They are the very building blocks of thought and allow us to see what isn’t there, to connect on a higher level to hidden realities.   Cynthia Ozick in her timeless essay, “Metaphor and Memory”  talks of metaphor as...

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Student Learning and Trust

 One thing that I’ve concluded after a few decades in school systems is they operate with a profound distrust of students. Distrust that left on their own students would want to learn something, even choose to learn. It’s true.  Even the most well intentioned teachers...

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Commencement. Commencing What?

Tomorrow my students are graduating with their B.Ed. There will be the usual big ceremony, the speeches, the dinner and so on and so on….. Each year over and over like a giant gristmill. I’m happy with my students. So happy. Also very proud of...

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The main reason for P.D.

This morning spent some time reading and thinking about professional development for teachers. It’s an important issue – especially these days with the public demanding we root out “bad” teachers and set up systems of evaluating teachers. Most good educational systems ask teachers to (even...

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The Flipped Curriculum – a presentation

I had a great time presenting some of my ideas on The Flipped Curriculum at RSCON 3. Thanks to all who attended. Here’s the “short” version, a rerecord. Please go to the webpage I mention, for videos, resources, readings on the Flipped Curriculum. Aplogizes for...

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Public Education Interventions

Public health intervention more than any other “science” has done more for humankind than anything else over the last 200 years. Forget industrialization, forget inventions – how we live in abundance and health is most definitely related to the things put into place by public...

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Apple or Google?

Which side do you generally side with when making decisions? Do you make decisions based on your expert knowledge and experience or do you lean towards the data and numbers? I’m asking because I’ve had some interesting conversations in this regard, with a colleague. How...

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The #1 …. (myth in education)

** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1. Learning = School = Education Learning is not 9 to 3, Mon. to Friday. Learning is not with a teacher and sitting at a desk. Learning is not a diploma or certificate. Learning is...

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More about “getting out of the way”

The objective of education is learning. Or not even that, I’ll interject. More exactly, the true objective is “contentment”, a well adjusted individual. And the only way to reach this objective is to tap into the “feeling good about oneself” that is always there in...

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How to discern a “fit and fun” classroom

With the events in Egypt unrolling these past days, my mind has been on them and also on the wider question, what makes a “liveable” country? I took down from my bookshelf, a treasured book, Notes from the Rainforest, by Gyorgy Faludy. Gyorgy is/was a...

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Self Directed Learning – Part 1

If I could meet just one guy who I’d like to chat about the future and place of education in the world – it would be a toss up between Ivan Illich and John Taylor Gatto. Illich the intellectual, the piercing and challenging mind –...

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Teachers – who needs them?

I just came home from the movies.  In the film I saw (The Kids Are Alright), one character when asked why he dropped out of school says, “I just thought it was a big waste of money for something I could learn myself, from a...

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No More Excuses!!!!!

I watched this part of 60 Minutes this evening. Whatever else, it stimulates the mind and gets one thinking about both A) Why some kids are not as “smart” and B) Who is responsible? A) My own opinion is that there are very large social...