Saturday, 28 February 2015

Talking tech

My latest interview appears in this month's edition of Teach Secondary magazine in conjunction with a review of my new book. Here it is:

Do teachers have a choice about whether to engage with technology?

Technology is already so embedded in the fabric of schools, it's probably unavoidable now. Whether it's teacher technology, including wordprocessors, electronic record keeping or databases, or student technology, such as laptops, educational software or personal devices, technology should now be viewed as a set of tools that can be harnessed to extend, enhance and enrich the learning experience. Add the exponential power of the Web into the mix, and the argument becomes compelling. Technology offers us unprecedented opportunities to transform education. The question is not whether teachers should engage with technology, but how.

If you had to pick out the single most important technological development for education over the past ten years, what would you choose and why? 

The final line of Learning with 'e's offers a clue when I say we literally hold the future of education in our hands. The personal, mobile device has started to transform learning in both formal and informal contexts. Learning in any place and at any time is going to gain traction in the coming years, and the emphasis will be on personal learning. Students can gain access to any amount of resources and connections that will help them to learn; they can use their mobile phones to connect with others; and also create and share their own content with potentially huge audiences outside and beyond the walls of the classroom. The value of this is immeasurable.

So, you've accidentally invented a time machine, and travelled forward to the year 2115. What do the schools look like?

Communities will always need schools. How education will be conducted, and how teachers will work, is an entirely different question. I foresee a time in the not too distance future when learning spaces will blur their boundaries with the outside world, and where the use of technology to connect schools and people together while they are learning will be paramount. It's already beginning to happen. I believe the boundaries will blur in our roles too, with teachers and students becoming co-learners. The silos of subjects will also open, and trans-curricular learning will emerge - something that will be vital for the economies of the 21st Century and beyond. Children will learn new skills and literacies that will prepare them for a future we can't clearly describe. Technology will play a key role in this preparation, and teachers will remain central to the process. I don't think technology is a threat to future education. It's something we should embrace. Teachers will not be replaced by technology, but teachers who use technology will replace those who don't.

Friday, 27 February 2015

Planning and Drafting

One of the things that Melissa and I notice is that the kids possess many talents that would remain hidden if we had not taken on 20% Time. Had we not begun this process, we would never know what computer geniuses Eli, Jacob, Evan and a few others are. We would not know the compassion of some of our kids like Quin, Cecily and Claire. We would not see the logic and inventiveness of Owen, Will and Christian. And we would not see the dreams of kids like Ethan, Yensen, Aireiona and Fiona. We certainly would not know what amazing artists Sam and Paul are unless we had allowed them the freedom to produce these drafts and plans. Wow!



Thursday, 26 February 2015

Education Readings- Personalized learning and 21stC learning.



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 weeks homework!

Four reasons to seriously worry about personalized learning
Alfie Kohn
Another gem from Alfie Kohn - a must read.
Personal learning entails working with each child to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests. It requires the presence of a caring teacher who knows each child well.
Personalized learning entails adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students test scores.   It requires the purchase of software from one of those companies that can afford full-page ads in Education Week.

Steve Hargadon: Escaping the Education Matrix
What are most kids getting out of 12 years of school?he asks. The honest answer is theyre learning how to follow, and that was the original intent. Public schools were based on the belief that what was needed was a small group of elites who would make the decisions for the country, and many more who would simply follow their directions” — hence a system that produces tremendous intellectual and commercial dependency.

How Learning Artistic Skills Alters the Brain
The art students specifically increased "their ability to think divergently, model systems and
processes, and use imagery," the researchers write. The results suggests that, in a matter of a few months, "prefrontal white matter reorganizes as (art students) become more able to think creatively.”’

The Corruption of Learning
The biggest challenge facing schools is that the modern world amplifies our ability to learn in the classic sense, and increasingly renders the official, school based theory of learning pointless and
Until school begins!
oppressive. While our kids
love of learning can flourish outside of school, its extinguished inside of school as we take away agency, passion, connection, audience, authenticity, and more.

Three lessons from the science of how to teach writing.
So much for teaching by standards
Traditional grammar instruction isnt effective. Period. Six studies with children in grades three to seven showed that writing quality actually deteriorated when kids were taught grammar. That is, graders scored the essays of students whod been taught traditional grammar lower than those of students who had not received the lessons.

What Comes First: the Curriculum or the Technology?
Its important to never force fit technology if its not supplementing whats already happening in the classroom or a teachers goals for the school year, the addition will become more of a barrier to learning than a catalyst.

Why Slowing Down Stimuli to Real Time Helps a Childs Brain
Suggest you read this and reflect.
The pacing of all programs, both adult and child, has sped up considerably. Part of the reason for that is that the more rapidly sequenced the scenes, the more distracting it is. Its taxing to the brain to process things that happen so fast even though were capable of doing it. And theres emerging science now in older children that watching such fast-paced programs diminishes what we call executive functionimmediately afterwards. It tires the mind out and makes it not function as well immediately after viewing it.

False Choices and how to Avoid Them
This came to me from Phil Cullen who found it on an Alfie Kohn tweet
The lesson "accept your children for who they are rather than for who you want them to be" is clear. Loving your kids for who they are is the only real choice.

Is There School Today?
Kindergarten, literally a "children's garden" was traditionally a place focused on playing, singing, and otherwise imagineering. Over the past 20 years, a myopic focus on reading and math has turned the children's garden into a factory, a place where unique beings go for standardization, followed by 12 more years of it. This standardized approach to learning supposedly prepares them for placement in an economy that no longer exists.


This weeks contributions from Bruce Hammonds:

Welcome to Concept to Classroom!
Bruces comment: For teachers who want some practical knowledge about :Constructivist
This is a wonderful and practical resource. Take a look!! And free.
Teaching,Multiple Intelligences,Cooperative and Collaborative Learning, Inquiry Learning, Interdisciplinary Learning, Assessment and Evaluation and Web Based Learning,  and practical ways to implement them this is the link for you. Highly recommended.
The site features a series of FREE, self-paced workshops covering a wide variety of hot topics in education. Some of the workshops are based in theory, some are based in methodology - but all of the workshops include plenty of tips and strategies for making classrooms work.

16 Ways Your Brain Is Sabotaging Your Effort To Learn
The human brain is our best friend, and our worst enemy, and unless we keep one eye peeled, it can hijack our learning completely.
In this article Id like to examine some of the trapsthe brain sets for us during the course of our academic careers, and what we can do to avoid them.


Welcome back to a new year of learning!
Discovery Time is the perfect opportunity to excite childrens curiosity, discover their strengths and stand  back and observe how they work together.  Keep your Key Competenciesfocussed on managing selfand relating to othersi.e. looking after equipment, sharing, taking turns, cleaning up when you have finished, trying something new, working with someone you dont know…”

Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching - a New Zealand perspective
Bruces comment: The challenge of developing a 21st C education system. Some NZ thinking about personalising learning. Well worth the read.
It is widely argued that current educational systems, structures and practices are not sufficient to address and support learning needs for all students in the 21st century. Changes are needed, but what kinds of change, and for what reasons? This research project draws together findings from new data and more than 10 years of research on current practice and futures-thinking in education.

Personalisation and Digital Technologies
Bruces comment: Download this document for a UK view of personalising education.
The logic of education systems should be reversed so that it is the system that conforms to the learner, rather than the learner to the system. This is the essence of personalisation. It demands a system capable of offering bespoke support for each individual that recognises and builds upon their diverse strengths, interests, abilities and needs in order to foster engaged and independent learners able to reach their full potential.

Personalising learning what does it mean?
Not to be outdone, heres Bruces take on personalised learning. Bruce mentions a book called ‘In the Early World’ by Elwyn Richardson. All teachers should have this in their library,
Once child centredwas commonly heard phrase but it  now seems dated . Student centredseems more relevant is this personalised learning? If students are helped individually some might call this personalised but , if it is moving through a pre-determined curriculum at the students pace this is simply a more an extreme form of ability grouping than personalising learning.

Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Everlasting love #lovelearning

'The only way to do great work is to love what you do.' said Steve Jobs, and here's another great quote: 'A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.' - Bob Dylan.

I haven't actually done a day's work for several years. Sounds bad, I know, but the truth is - I'm incredibly lucky to be in a job that I really love, and the bonus is that I get paid to do it. I previously wrote about this in a post called live to learn. Teaching is what I'm paid to do, but it leads to further reward for me because I learn a lot while I'm teaching. What I'm really in love with is learning. It's a love I have developed for my work that has gradually built over the last 20 or so years, and it shows no sign of waning. Any teacher will tell you that education is no bed of roses, but even through all the less positive aspects of the job, I still get a buzz out of helping others to learn, and seeing students achieve their full potential.


The Greek word for this kind of love is pragma. It describes an enduring, long lasting love that can survive the trials and tribulations of life. It's a love that has the resilience required to stand the test of time, but it also allows you to reflect back on the good times and not so good times, and appraise their value. Pragma is a love borne out of a realistic and rational consideration of the object of one's love. It's a love that lasts.

When applied to relationships, pragma represents a fair exchange, a symbiosis that benefits both parties. Those who are in pragmatic relationships often connected because of practical considerations, rather than physical attraction. This is the kind of love observed in older married couples, who have stuck to their vows and been faithful to each other throughout the years. This explains a lot to me about why I fell in love with teaching. It's because I can see the rewards I gain from the effort I put in to preparing, teaching and marking student assignments.

Teachers need pragma - to develop an 'everlasting love' - if they are to survive in a highly pressurised environment. Are you in love with learning?

Photo by eek the cat on Flickr

Creative Commons License
Everlasting love by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Personalising learning – what does it mean? How does it relate to Modern Learning Environments?




A stimulating environment
Once ‘child centred’ was commonly heard phrase but it  now seems dated . ‘Student centred’ seems more relevant –is this personalised learning? If students are helped individually some might call this personalised but , if it is moving through a pre-determined curriculum at the students pace this is simply a more an extreme form of ability grouping than personalising learning.

Even the development of ‘modern learning environments’ (flexibleschool structures that allow groups of teachers and students to collaboratewith the aid of modern technology - MLEs) do not automatically result inpersonalised learning. A look at a range of small videos illustrating the advantages of such environments seem to feature no real evidence of in depth inquiry work reminding me of the failure of the open plan schools of the 70s. They however, with the appropriate pedagogy, obviously have great potential.
Valuing kids' theories

Personalised learning is about accepting students for whothey are, what they bring with them and helping them extend and deepen theirinnate abilities.  If this were the case one ought to be more impressed with the quality thinking and presentation of student work across the curriculum to be seen rather than the architecture and the availability of modern information technology. Unfortunately it is far too easy to be impressed with what is superficially to be seen – one really has to look hard at what students are achieving and how their work is showing improvement - all too often the Emperor has no clothes.

John Holt said it best when asked what would  be the one thing that would improve schools(1970) replied, ‘It  would be to let every would be the planner, director and assessor of his own education, to allow and encourage him, with the inspiration and
guidance of more experienced and expert people, and as much help as he Asked for, to decide what it is he is to learn, when he is to learn it, how he is to learn it, and how well he is learning it .It would be to make our schools….a resource for free and independent learning..’

'The young child', Holt writes, 'is continually building what I  like to call a mental model of the world, the universe and then checking it against reality as it presents to him, and then tearing it down and rebuilding it as necessary..' We are Holt continues, 'obliged to live out our lives thinking, acting, judging on the basis of the most fragmentary ,uncertain  and temporary information.' In this respect Holt is expressing a constructivist model of learning - the teachers role is to assist the learners clarify their ideas not replacing them with imposed learning objectives.  Ideally the teacher works alongside the learner in a co-constructivist style respecting each learners  unique thinking. It is evidence  of such thinking that should be seen in  creative classrooms. It is this uniqueness  and individuality that is missing in modern classrooms


The best example available is to be found in the book ‘In theEarly World’ written by pioneer New Zealand teacher Elwyn Richardson in the 1960s. Thankfully is has recently been reprinted by the
NZCER. This book describes one teacher’s effort to develop a curriculum based on the personal concerns, interests of his students and through exploring their immediate environment. Elwyn developed his classroom as a community of scientist and artists – a community focused on developing the individuality and creativity of each learner.


If you were to visit a personalised learning environment (modern learning environment or not) you ought to see on the wails, in the student books, or in their electronic portfolios examples of the unique ‘voice’ of each learner – and it would be obvious how individual students had been helped to deepen their understandings. The teacher’s role in creating the conditions for individual creativity is as important as ever.

In such a creative environment teachers are concerned with the student’s experience – what they bring to any learning situation and what unique talents and interests that can be taken advantage of, amplified, or uncovered. This is not to say that the curriculum is to be totally determined by the students. Teachers need to provide learning opportunities that studentswill want to find out more about. As educationalist Jerome Bruner has written, ‘teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation’. Such a learning environment might feature provocative displays (focussing on, or integrating Learning Areas) to ‘attract’ student’s curiosity. By such means the ‘emergent’ curriculum will expose students to the various strands of the official curriculum.

Teachers in such environments need to appreciate that all students have an innate desire to make meaning of their experiences and, by capitalising on this innate need, all students can develop and extend their learning strategies. Whatever the students choose to do provide opportunities for teachers to capitalise on, to strengthen students’ insight, to develop greater
Goethe - a most important quote about creativity
awareness, to deepen their understanding, and to encourage imagination and, in the process ensure their students learn to value the need for perseverance and effort required if their students are to improve on their personal best.

Teachers, if they are to help all students continually challenge their personal best, need to have the ‘artistry’ to know when to intervene and when to leave students to work on their own. Teachers act, as guides, instructors if required, or merely involved as an interested adult. To do this requires teachers to become expert observers of their students so they can help individuals (or small groups) as needed. They will also have to negotiate with their students work patterns and organisations to provide the space and time so students are able to achieve what they have agreed to do. This is best done at the beginning of the day and planning for tomorrow during an end of day reflective time. In such an environment students will need to appreciate that there will also be times when choices are limited.

It is through the qualities of an artist a scientist,  a writer or a craftsman that students learn the discipline involved in any learning.

Perhaps the most noticeable features of a truly personalisedlearning environment is the absence of ability group in such areas as readingand maths. This is not to suggest such areas are unimportant but more that they need to be ‘reframed’ as ‘foundation skills’ necessary for students to complete their individual, or group, inquiry tasks. Language and maths can also be transformed in research tasks as well as being integrated as and when needed. Reading to learn and Information technology, in this respect, is also another equally important ‘foundation skill’.
Importance of real experinces
learning to read go hand in hand.


Personalised learning places real responsibility on students for their own learning.

How to develop such a personalised environment needs to be seen as an evolving process – the important thing is to keep the ‘end in mind’ of how the class will look in term four. As confidence of both teachers and students grow set routines can be relaxed passing more responsibility over to the students to plan their own tasks. As success is achieved, and as students take more self-responsibility, the vision of personalised learning will be realised.

To help every learner achieve their personal best in this age of fast information creative teachers have found that it is important  to encourage students to ‘slow down the pace’ of their work so as to develop a sense of craftsmanship allowing, in the process, time for teachers to come
Value student 'voice'.
alongside learners to assist those in need. ‘Slowing the pace of work’ also encourages students to develop appreciate the need for perseverance and effort to counteract the need to finish first which all too often  spoils so much of students work.

Such a quality personalised learning approach could well be the basis of learning in a flexible ‘modern learning environment’ but can equally be found in a single classroom.

The concern of a personalised learning is with the experience of each individual learner and content, while still important, is to be seen as a means to the end of each students develop a positive learning identity; it is also about developing the individuals sense of control of his, or her, own learning adventure - for them not only to take responsibility for their lifelong learning but also for the welfare of others in their learning community.


Sunday, 22 February 2015

The power of love #lovelearning

In my two most recent posts I considered the role love plays in education. This mini series on love was inspired by a lecture from a colleague entitled 'What's love got to do with it?' delivered to my final year primary education students. The key take away from his lecture was that all good relationships have a basis of love and good teaching needs good relationships. He bemoaned the fact that we only have one word to describe a large spectrum of loves, whereas the ancient Greeks had many. Using the word 'love' in many contexts does not necessarily connote romantic involvement or sexual intent, but can mean any number of other affections, but it is so often miscontrued, simply because we are forced to use the same word for many different kinds of love. An exploration of the words used in ancient Greece is therefore a useful exercise.

In my last two posts I outlined the place of agape in education. Agape is a self sacrificing love that causes people to do extraordinarily acts of kindness and altruism. I argued that many teachers have this kind of love, and this is what drives them to be so dedicated to their students. I also wrote about phileo - a brotherly kind of love that relishes in social connection and mutual experiences. It is this kind of love that we experience working in a great team, or involving ourselves in a club or association, and it is an essential ingredient in effective collaborative learning.

Another relevant kind of love in education is storge - often described as similar to parental love. It is the unconditional love parents have for their children, no matter what those children might do or say. Some would say this is a kind of love that is blind to imperfections, only seeing the best in our children and never holding a grudge. How does this apply in education? The educational theorist and psychoanalyst Carl Rogers once referred to 'unconditional positive regard' which is an acceptance of any student, regardless of their previous misdemeanors or track record. He argued that such acceptance of students promoted a better, more equitable form of education, because it presupposed nothing, and any achievement became possible. Students did not feel marginalised, nor did they feel the need to play up to a stereotype. Rogers' kind of unconditional pedagogy was person centred, where individual responsibility was placed upon each student.

Sometimes, teachers label certain students as 'trouble makers', or 'low in intelligence' or 'lazy', often on the word of other teachers, or rumours. This is a human attribute, and it is difficult to break free from this kind of bias. Also, as Rosenthal and Jacobson once demonstrated, such expectations of behaviour can evoke a biased form of pedagogy, where students eventually become what they are predicted to be - in a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. It is therefore important that as teachers, we give our students a second (and even sometimes a third or fourth) chance. If we care for our students as would a parent, and demonstrate that storge love.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Creative Commons License
The power of love by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Saturday, 21 February 2015

All you need is love #lovelearning

Sixties pop group The Beatles sang 'All you need is love,' and then they broke up. It took them years to reconcile their differences. Love is a fragile thing. It requires nurturing with care. More songs, poems, stories and movies have been written about love than any other subject under the sun. It inspires, it overwhelms, it makes us weep, it makes us smile, or dance with joy. We are all subject to it, and we all succumb to its subtle powers at some point in our lives.

In yesterday's post I wrote about the many kinds of love we encounter, and highlighted the problem that we only have one word to describe them all. The Greeks had many words, one of which is Agape, an all encompassing, sacrificial love, borne out of devotion to the object of one's love. This kind of love is apparent in education when teachers go the extra mile and do extraordinary things to support their students and encourage them to achieve their potentials. It's the kind of love that prompts us to go on marathon runs to raise money for those less fortunate than ourselves. It's what prompts people to throw themselves unthinkingly into a rough sea to save a stranger from drowning. The deep relationship that can be forged between teachers and their students can lead to extraordinary results, and numerous authors have written about this.

Other kinds of love are equally important, not only in education, but in all facets of life. There is a form of love expressed in the Greek word Phileo which means brotherly love, friendship that does not involve any form of romantic involvement. It's where the word philanthropy comes from, to which the word Anglophile (love of English) owes its origins, and was also the inspiration for the name Philadelphia - the US 'city of brotherly love'. Phileo is a love that describes feelings of belonging, and a sense of common purpose. It's the same sense of belonging that Abraham Maslow described in his hierarchy of human needs. It's something we all crave, and is often experienced in social groupings, friendship circles and clubs, where children (and adults) share a common purpose and goals. It's also why many of us join social networks and use social media - we want to connect to others who have similar interests and backgrounds. We want to share. We want to belong.

Phileo is related to another Greek word, Koinonia, which is translated as sharing, participating together, and ultimately enjoying being together with others. Phileo is often needed when children are required to work together, and it's often the case that the groups who enjoy being together perform better. It's about fellowship - going through the same experiences and meeting challenges together. Collaborative learning is on the rise in modern pedagogy, because teachers have discovered that children tend to learn more when they discuss, compare and contrast their ideas. The essence of good collaborative learning is when students work together to achieve a common goal, and draw on each other's strengths and abilities to reach that end. Phileo love is the vital ingredient in this process, because it binds the group members together, and the outcome is mutual respect and support. In such rich learning contexts, love really is all you need.

Photo by Ibrahim Ludaj on Wikimedia Commons

Creative Commons License
All you need is love by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Friday, 20 February 2015

Education Readings - John Dewey/ Charter Schools/ PISA/ Educational technology



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 weeks homework!

The Pupil in the Middle of Your Eye
This article by former Queensland Director of Primary Education Phil Cullen is a must read for all teachers.
Sosince learning is institutionalised in schools, pupils need to know why they are at school and
what sort of relationship is intended during the schooling efforts. Too often do we overlook this. Children believe that they go to school only because someone says that they have to go. The excitement of learning has been understated. We teach in the schools because we are more expert at the teaching act than other people in the community and we want to honour the contract of helping children to learn how to learn.

Chiles Charter School Experiment is Almost Over
This week Chile ended the education sector experiment started in the 1980s by dictator Pinochet that had led to, by 2014, around 60% of the nations schools becoming charter schools. Like Thatcher and Reagan, Pinochet was a devotee of Milton Friedmans free market ideology (one that the National Party of New Zealand follows, too), and deregulating schools is key to that ideology.

What Do We Really Mean When We Say Personalized Learning?
Good points made here - what teachers mean by personalized learning is different from what Pearson Group, et al, mean.
‘“We often say we want creativity and innovation personalization but every mechanism we use to measure it is through control and compliance,Laufenberg said. Those things never come together as long as that is the overriding moment.She cautions educators who may be excited about the progressive educational implications for personalized learningto make sure everyone they work with is on the same page about what that phrase means.

Home readers for school kids often wasted learning opportunity, expert warns
Food for thought
Lecturer in literacy education at the University of Canberra Ryan Spencer told 666 ABC Canberra the home reader routine was a wasted learning opportunity if the student was disengaged.
"If they don't have interest or excitement, or if there's no motivation to read that book, it just becomes an onerous task," he said.
"Reluctant readers take [their readers] home because they have to and the teacher has chosen it.
"But by the time they get home, the last thing they want to do is read this book that they've already read at school that day.”’

Ten things you need to know about international assessments
Lots of information here, with this quote being very pertinent.
These assessments were never intended to line up and rank nations against each other like baseball standings.
Thats right. The statisticians and psychometricians who dreamed up these assessments 50 years ago stated explicitly that the question of whether the children of country X [are] better educated that those of country Ywas a false questiondue to the innumerable social, cultural, and economic differences among nations. But, hey, thats just a detail.

One-Size-Fits-All Testing Isn't What Our Kids Need To Succeed
The message is slowly disseminating.
What are the skill sets that we as a society see as necessary for the future success of our children? What kind of future do we want to be shaping? Do we want well-rounded children who grow up with exposure to the arts, culture, and music? Or do we want over-tested, over-stressed children who see only the importance of achieving academic growth? Are we looking to provide our children with the skills that are necessary to instill a sense of morals, coping skills, and human compassion? Or do we continue to narrow down the focus of academics to what can be measured on a standardized test, and use that as a predictor for future success?

The Heavy Hitters Behind a Fund Focused on K-12 Blended Learning
For all you ……….. (insert descriptor of choice) who are buying into the propaganda about blended learning, I suggest you read this blog by Susan Ohanian to see who is behind it.
Surprise. Surprise. Look at who's behind Blended Learning."Blended" is, of course, a diversionary term to distract from the fact that this system of computer-directed instruction should actually be termed, at best, teacher-lite--and, at worst, teacher dumped.

Why technology will never replace teachers
Heres a gem from Steve Wheeler:
When children act unexpectedly, or demand support that requires intuition, only a human teacher who knows that child can support them effectively. Comparatively, the human brain is highly complex, while the computer is a very simple tool. We are only just beginning to understand some aspects of the human brain, whereas computers are fully understandable, because they have been designed by human ingenuity.

You have made us the enemy. This is personal.
Seven New York State teachers write an open letter to Governor Cuomo.
We are teachers. We have given our hearts and souls to this noble profession. We have pursued intellectual rigor. We have fed students who were hungry. We have celebrated at student weddings and wept at student funerals. Education is our life. For this, you have made us the enemy. This is personal.http://wapo.st/1zCio03

This weeks contributions from Bruce Hammonds:

Keeping alive the spirit of John Dewey
Bruces latest blog article which includes this sobering comment: The student centred ideas of John Dewey have, it seems, all been lost in the country of his birth. Thats a tragic state of affairs.
John Dewey believed that the need to learn, to make sense of ones experience was the inborn innate way humans learn - until they reach formal schooling. One of his key phrases was that 'children are people, they grow into tomorrow only as they live today'. Culture counts - for better or worse.

Using Old Tech (Not Edtech) to Teach Thinking Skills
Bruces comment: Making full use of old techthinking skills with modern technology
I've viewed classroom technology as the means to sharing knowledge, in addition to acquiring or manipulating it. Yet I find that not only has the computer itself become something of a distraction, but the students aren't making enough use of the techs "share-ability" -- that is, they struggle to work effectively together on it, and to have their ideas cohere in an intelligible way. It occurred to me that co-editing in a Google Doc is a skill that itself needs to be taught and practiced before it can become effective in the classroom.

Perspectives / Five Myths About School Improvement
Bruces comment: Many schools subscribe to the  ASCD magazine Educational Leadership this latest editorial will give you a taste. There are some good links to explore.
Indeed, even those who advocate disparate visions about "what works" most likely would concur that there is no panacea that will help all schools all the time. David Berliner and Gene Glass tell why contexts matter in the social sciences. They describe the problems with replicability, transfer, and fading effects of single reforms, but they do not conclude that the reform process is a waste of time.

How We Make Progress
Bruces comment: Too much of our teaching is based on linear thinking but it seems our learning is not as simple. Well worth the read. I have aways thought that learning was spiral shaped  , ever upwards,  but at times regressing. Another great read from Anne Murphy.

This is not an orderly ascension up an ever-rising set of steps. Its something more like waves on a beach, where one wave overtakes another and then pulls back, overtaken in turn by another advancing and then receding wave. Overlapping wavesis, in fact, the name of a theory of intellectual development proposed by Robert Siegler, a professor of cognitive psychology at Carnegie Mellon University.

From Bruce's oldies but goodiesfile:

Dysfunctional Schools
Bruces observations on Kirsten Olsens book 'Wounded by School-recapturing the Joy in Learning and Standing up to the Old School Culture
I don't think teachers like to face up to the fact that schooling actually harms many of their students but it is clear , reading Kirsten's Olsen book, it does. Obviously this harming is not done intentionally but it is all too easy to blame failure on dysfunctional students. Certainly too few students leave school with their joy of learning alive and their unique gifts and talents strengthened - not even the so called successful students.

On Knowing - Jerome Bruner
Bruces comment: My favourite quote from Bruner is teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation.Today we  have those (usually politicians) who wish to test for learning ignoring, according to Bruner, that 'it is difficult to catch and record, no less understand, the swift flight of man's mind operating at its best.The themes Jerome Bruner covers in his book concern the process of knowing, how knowing is shaped and how it in turn gives form to language science, literature and art. The symbolism of the left hand is that of the dreamer - the right that of the practical doer.The areas of hunches and intuition, Bruner writes, has been all too often overwhelmed by an 'imposed fetish of objectivity’…’"