Deferred gratification – that ability to work for something now at the expense of immediate reward in order to receive a greater reward later – has long been a social staple of the middle class. Work hard in school,earn a place in college and get a better paying job. Save for a deposit and buy a house. It is a…
Category: Education
Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
Listen to this podcast interview with Clayton Christensen – one of the authors of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns – A crash course in the business of learning-from the bestselling author of The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution. Photo: Jake Hills
Many Minds, Many Voices, Many Stories
The history of Nigeria and African colonialism is not Chinua Achebe and Things Fall Apart; the Holocaust is not Anne Frank and The Diary; Mumbai is not Slumdog Millionaire. Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear…
Coal smoke and kippers
The farmers’ market is full of strange squash and gourds and pumpkins of every color, shape, and size. Autumn – mists and melancholy, falling leaves and nostalgia – is a time for memories. Mists that burn off by mid-morning and skeins of geese and migrating birds. Dark evenings when you can still play outside exhilarated by the chill, and the smell of…
10 ways to boost job satisfaction: Resolutions for teache
There’s never a shortage of advice for teachers. And because everyone went to school – everyone is an expert on education and ready to offload opinions – good, bad and indifferent. Handwringing about how much better things used to be is a popular pastime – completely ignoring the fact that – to use the tag from Disrupting Class – disruptive…
Praising the Beast
We asked the captain what course of action he proposed to take toward a beast so large, so terrifying, and unpredictable. He hesitated to answer, and then said judiciously, “I think I shall praise it.” Robert Haas. Epigraph to his second book of poems, Praise: 1979 If you work in a school you get two chances at a new year. …
And the geeks should inherit the school….
Great essay by Daniel Roth in Wired magazine about “geeks” and school. Some extracts: “The driving force in the life of a child, starting much earlier than it used to be, is to be cool, to fit in,”….”And pretty universally, it’s cool to rebel.” …. “The best schools….are able to make learning cool, so the cool kids are the ones…
Why give homework?
Every year at the annual Eagle Society poetry reading a lower school student demonstrates that s/he has spent homework time memorizing Shel Silversteins’s twelve line epic that begins: Homework, oh homework I hate you, you stink. I wish I could wash you away in the sink. If only a bomb would explode you to bits, Homework oh homework you’re giving…
Educating Citizens
PDS has had a longtime commitment to service learning and getting involved to make a difference. I was pleased to find these photos deep in the archives. The first one is from 1962-1963 and shows children and a rescued squirrel and the others show PDS volunteers involved in a horse rescue project in 1999. This past year high school science…
The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009: Twitter up. Powerpoint down.
For those who enjoy lists: The top 100 tools for learning. This is the 3rd year learning professionals from all over the world have been invited to share their top 10 online tools for learning to help build the Top 100 list. Check out the emerging list and compare rankings. Here is Jane Hart’s SlideShare report: Twitter is now number…
Setting your socks on fire
Looking through old PDS school photos – pictures of children working with tools, wading waist deep in muddy ponds and handling a plank on a cabin roof – started me thinking about risk. Taking risks is an essential part of children’s play and overcoming fears and obstacles is how we all grow and learn. Here’s a PDS picture that was…
Music and Arts lag. Can poetry be far behind?
This week in the NYTimes – news of a rather discouraging report about music and arts education across the US. And even the test sample was smaller. In the test, formally known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Arts, administrators at 260 public and private schools were asked how much time they devoted to art and music instruction,…
Good news for wool gatherers
A wandering mind heads toward insight WSJ article reports on findings that suggest: …our brain may be most actively engaged when our mind is wandering and we’ve actually lost track of our thoughts, a new brain-scanning study suggests. “Solving a problem with insight is fundamentally different from solving a problem analytically,” … “There really are different brain mechanisms involved.” So…
Snow! “Now don’t eat it, Scout, you’re wasting it”
With the chance of a snow day looming and with the news of snow across much of Alabama my mind went to Jem and Scout and children’s priorities: Next morning I awoke, looked out the window and nearly died of fright. My screams brought Atticus from his bathroom half-shaven. “The world’s endin’, Atticus! Please do something-!” I dragged him to…
Like a good debate?
Interested in education? Like a good debate? Then Bridging Differences is for you. It’s an ongoing debate between two of the most interesting minds in education – Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch. They have been disagreeing for years but they both believe deeply in the importance of education and share a passion for improving schools.