By Allan Alach
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come
across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.
This week’s homework!
How long before administrators lose touch with the realities of the
classroom?
 |
| Principals lose touch? |
A good question…
“In
closing, are administrators who are freshly out of the classroom better at
evaluating teachers since they are recently removed? Or, are these new
administrators stuck in their offices dealing with school discipline while the
more senior administrator, who is further removed from the classroom, handles
most of the classroom observations?”
 |
| Causing educational damage! |
Why Is This So Hard?
Ruminations on the problems of convincing people
about the damage caused by testing policies.
“But
I cannot wrap my head around how any system of standardized testing, which was
designed during the Eugenics movement to sort and track people according to
race, class, and gender can possibly offer the solution to the persons and
groups it was intended to harm the most.”
How Strict Is Too Strict?: The backlash against no-excuses
discipline in high school
Is this crazy or what?
“In
step with an energetic breed of charter advocates nationally, the reformers who
descended on New Orleans were convinced that progressive pedagogy and
discipline had an especially sorry record in low-income districts, where many
children faced more than their share of disorder and
Allowing students to deeply understand
assessment.
Hmmm, I like the approach but not the use of
rubrics that turn learning into the educational version of paint by numbers.
“It
was interesting observing students move through the class. Once they realized
how different each chart was, they became absorbed in reading the charts,
giving feedback and then, unexpectedly commenting on the feedback and
observations being made.
As you read, notice how the students have internalized our classroom
discourse.”
5 Things Teachers Wish Parents Knew
Thanks to Stephen Baker for this one. What would
you add/delete/change?
“Reading
all these responses from teachers was a great reminder to me, just how
important it is to be PRESENT when you are with your kids. Pay attention to
what they enjoy and make
their schoolwork a priority. Teachers have such a short amount of time to give
your children all the skills they need, so you HAVE to help. “
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| A must read! |
Learn math without fear, Stanford expert says
“Stanford
Professor Jo Boaler says that students most effectively learn "math
facts" working on problems that they enjoy, rather than through exercises
and drills they fear. Speed pressure, timed testing and blind memorization
damage children's experience of math, she says”.
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| Peter Senge |
What You Need for a Caring Classroom: Daniel
Goleman and Peter Senge outline three kinds of empathy kids need for success at
work and in life.
“A
new article in Scientific American, "The Secret to Raising Smart
Kids," suggests that "focusing on 'process,' rather than intelligence
or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life." This process
consists of personal effort and effective strategies. One process we are talking about today is building empathy into the
classroom setting, and how developing emotional intelligence is key to success
inside and outside of the classroom.”
It’s time ministers realised that
teachers really do want to teach
Thanks to Joce Jesson for this link.
“Children
are measured at an ever more granular level, to a narrowing set of performance
indicators. It is fundamentally disrespectful to them, a cynical waste of their
time for the purposes
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This misunderstands the nature of learning: that individuals do
different things at different rates, and the speed of one individual’s learning can vary wildly, without being anybody’s fault.”
This week’s contributions from Bruce Hammonds:
Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School
 |
| Lets not lose imp of play! |
“New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger
ages, may backfire. Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their
children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading
books to babies in the womb. They pressure teachers to make kindergartens and
nurseries more like
schools.”
New Zealand Creativity Challenge 2015
This looks like it will be very good.
‘…
the event will include hands-on workshops, discussion
groups and excellent networking opportunities.
“We want to create something that will have an inspiring and vigorous
life long after the conference itself is over. We want to connect people across
different fields, such as the arts,
“The Challenge theme is ‘Creativity Crosses
Boundaries’ because it’s time to move beyond the age of super heroes and understand that we’re all in this together. Certainly we need some experts and heroes
but creativity belongs to everyone – it is central
to our humanity.”’
http://bit.ly/1AgU22a
http://bit.ly/1AgU22a
Is YOUR School Wasting Money on
Technology?
A very good question, posed by Bill Ferriter….
Reminds me of an old cliche - Any teacher who can be replaced by technology,
should be replaced.
“He calls us "ever-optimistic techno-cheerleaders" --
blinded by the belief that if we JUST had more gizmos and gadgets and
connections to the web, we could do wonderful things with our kids. The truth, however, is that communities have gotten no REAL returns
on the investments that they have made in classroom technologies. We keep spending millions on everything from iPads to IWBs to 3D
printers yet our schools remain places where learners stagnate.”
Can Students Have Too Much Tech?
In a similar vein …
“To the extent that such a teacher can benefit from classroom
technology, he or she should get it. But only when such teachers are
effectively trained to apply a specific application to teaching a particular
topic to a particular set of students — only then
does classroom technology really work. Even then, we still have no proof that
the newly acquired, tech-centric skills that students learn in the classroom
transfer to novel problems that they need to solve in other areas.”
How To Do Everything Right In Schools.
Bruce’s comment:
Develop a culture of intellectual inquiry in your school, or class. A short but
insightful read.
“Begin with a theory, make a prediction, test, observe, modify the
theory, and so on. Fields from astronomy to medicine have used this process.
The fact that education as a field has not universally embraced this process is
one reason it remains vulnerable to fads and fashions. This is where the role
of school and district leaders comes in. It’s up to those leaders to establish a culture of intellectual
inquiry, one that values mistakes for what they teach us about what we might
try next rather than one that uses mistakes as a reason to punish others. This
certainly runs contrary to the way some education leaders have been trained to
operate.”
What attitudes towards learning have your
students brought with them - what will need to change?
Bruce’s latest blog
posting, making suggestions for New Zealand teachers reflect on at the end
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“Negotiating with your students to develop ownership is always a good
idea. It would be interesting to ask your class to list and then share the
things they would like to learn about, the things that concern them and the
things they wonder about. Teachers who have done this have found
that their students study ideas align well with the suggestions of the
curriculum.”
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