November 2011
1 post
3 tags
Arguing against a dichotomous view of the world...
“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”
Oscar Wilde
“Of course there is no us and them But them they do not think the same”
Gogol Bordello/Illumination
Some people see the world in black and white; everything is a dichotomy. Things are right or wrong, successes or failures. Others tend to view the world as a series of continua – seeing issues as one thing or another is to...
October 2011
6 posts
4 tags
The Alfred Hitchcock Instructional Strategy: The...
I’ve lost track of how many trainings I’ve sat through to learn the latest pedagogical innovation. Over the years I’ve heard that this particular strategy, that lesson plan format or this other writing program is it. Whatever we used to do is the teaching equivalent of a lime-green leisure suit. If we really do hope to save our kids from imminent non-achievement, we must...
4 tags
I’ll see your sports analogy and raise you one
The standards based movement is now encouraging us to base grades solely on assessments. – and a fairly narrow range of assessments at that. Homework, class work, participation and the like should no longer be considered in formulating grades. The nice, participatory kid can no longer pass a class by being nice and participatory – this is presented along with the assumption that we all agree...
4 tags
Some Things I Don't Hate:
“I know what I hate. I don’t hate this.”
C. Montgomery Burns
Okay, before this Blog goes any further, I want to advance some evidence that I’m not simply a naysayer. When I started writing this stuff I didn’t know I’d be posting it publicly a bit at a time, it was simply a form of catharsis. Therefore, you’ll have to bear with me through the first half-dozen posts...
3 tags
Phraseology from the Brave New World with which I...
“Tact is kind; diplomacy is useful; euphemism is harmless and sometimes entertaining. By contrast, doublespeak is dishonest and dangerous”
Julian Burnside QC
Student Achievement
The single greatest success of the standards-based testing movement is the wholesale co-opting of the word achievement. This is a term that has come to refer, almost exclusively, to student performance on...
5 tags
Howdy Do
I am:
a 14th-year public high school teacher in California. My school has a diverse student population – highly second-language, lower socioeconomic status, but also a liberal chunk of articulate, motivated, high functioning kids. By the way, those two groups are not mutually exclusive, more like a Venn diagram. Most of my career has been spent teaching juniors and seniors with the occasional...
