Should Corporations Control Schooling?

Great conversation starter from PBS Frontline:

College, Inc.

National Teacher Appreciation Day

Teachers have increasingly become convenient scapegoats of corporations, politicians, and technocrats. This can clearly be seen in the words and actions of those who have very little on-the-ground contact with classrooms and schools, and who think they know best about what is important in the lives of children.

Trying to micro-manage learning through top-down collection of data and prescription of artificial remedies unrelated to local cultural realities is deadly to our democracy and to the goal of promoting teachers and citizens who are inspired and motivated to create life-long learners and critical thinkers in our society.

While a day of appreciation for teachers is fine and dandy, wouldn't it be even better to give them the respect they deserve year-round? This President had it right:

"A distinguishing characteristic of our nation — and a great strength — is the development of our institutions within the concept of individual worth and dignity. Our schools are among the guardians of that principle. Consequently . . . and deliberately their control and support throughout our history have been — and are — a state and local responsibility. . . . Thus was established a fundamental element of the American public school system — local direction by boards of education responsible immediately to the parents of children. Diffusion of authority among tens of thousands of school districts is a safeguard against centralized control and abuse of the educational system that must be maintained. We believe that to take away the responsibility of communities and states in educating our children is to undermine not only a basic element of our freedoms but a basic right of our citizens. " ~ President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Teachers need to continue to be more than just test-preparation agents. They need to be given the freedom to connect with students - where the students are at - within the bounds of available resources and energy.

“If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job.” ~ Donald Quinn

I commend teachers - each with his/her own style, methods and philosophy - today and everyday.

Which teacher had the biggest impact on your life?

National Teacher Day
Teacher Appreciation

Teacher Quotes: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Connectivism

Connectivism & Connection Knowledge
elearnspace: Connectivism
Connectivism @ Wikipedia
Connectivism @ Wikiversity
Learning in the Corporate Sector: Instructivism, Constructivism, Connectivism
Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology: Connectivism
Iterating about Openness: Thinking Out Loud about Connectivism
Connectivist Learning Theory: Siemens
Podcast: ELI Podcast: Connectivism

Grave Concerns from Alliance for Childhood

Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals
on the Common Core Standards Initiative

Space: How much do we need to learn and live

by Ed Latham

Stumbled on the following video this morning.


This got me thinking about the spaces we educate in and how wasteful so many of our buildings are. It is almost as if architects don't "get it" or can't offer it without breaking the public bank. Most new schools start with a plot of land and people figure out how to best fill that land up with facilities that convey messages. What message do you get when you go into your school? Look around you next time you enter a school. Look at the outside, as you enter look around you, and as you sit in a classroom share with us how you feel. Do you feel as if you are a part of nature or in fact a part of anything? Our institutional designs may claim "most efficient", "most ergonomic" and many other feel good titles, but they fall so far short. Consider the gentleman in the video. With just 300 sq feet (1/2 a classroom) he has built in every convenience he needs to live comfortably. A traditional classroom needs some place for the teacher to lecture from, a surface to write on or display images, and seating (often the oh so comfortable standard student special). I have seen some teachers go to great lengths to try to make these institutional boxes into more human friendly places and their efforts are super! There must be some great creative ways teachers and students can transform their class spaces into more efficient and comfortable spaces. Our society is touted as being one of the creative centers of the world, so there has to be some great ideas out there. If anyone has transformed their rooms into energy efficient, comfortable, and welcoming learning environments can you share pictures, descriptions of the transformation and what struggles were encountered along the way. Hopefully by sharing possibilities of space, as shown in the video, we call all be inspired to think out side the box to make our classroom boxes better places to spend a huge chunk of our first 18 years of life.

Featuring Henry Giroux

Wikipedia: Henry Giroux

Articles by Giroux

Henry Giroux: In Defense of Public School Teachers in a Time of Crisis

"There has been a long, though declining, tradition in the United States in which public school teaching was embraced as an important public service. It was assumed that teachers provided a crucial foundation for educating young people in the values, skills and knowledge that enabled them to be critical citizens capable of shaping and expanding democratic institutions. Since the 1980's, teachers have been under an unprecedented attack by those forces that view schools less as a public good than as a private right." ~Henry A. Giroux

Read more . . . .

@ The Friere Project

@ Truthout

@ OpEdNews

@ Common Man News

Important Things to Learn

Back in 2006, Stephen Downes wrote a post here and here that spoke to what was essential for everyone to learn. Today I just happened upon it again, and it sparked some more thinking about his suggestions. Here are Stephen's essentials linked to some resource pages here at LIM:

1. How to Predict Consequences
2. How to Read
3. How to Distinguish between Truth and Fiction
4. How to Empathize
5. How to be Creative
6. How to Communicate Clearly
7. How to Learn
8. How to Stay Healthy
9 How to Value Yourself
10. How to Live Meaningfully

History of American Education

Should students be servants of corporations?

"It would be a mistake to assume that the present-day educational system is unchanging. On the contrary, it is undergoing rapid change. But much of this change is no more than an attempt to refine the existent machinery, making it ever more efficient in pursuit of obsolete goals."
~ Alvin Toffler


Ravitch on Education - A Podcast Interview
The Underground History of American History: John Gatto
Wikipedia: History of Education in the United States
American Educational History: A Hypertext Timeline
The History of Education in America
A Short History of United States' History: 1900 - 2006

John Dewey's Democracy and Education

Assignment for Business Round Table, Governors, Obama Administration and State Education Officers: Read John Dewey's Democracy and Education and then compare and contrast with the goals of RttT and the Common Core State Standards.


Democracy and Education WikiSource
Amazon: Democracy and Education
World Wide School: D & E
Creating a National Culture of Learning: Education & Democracy
Wikipedia: D & E

Education as Commodity & Democracy

commodity [kəˈmɒdɪtɪ]n: an article of commerce

"This is a perilous moment. The individualist, greed-driven free-market ideology that both our major parties have pursued is at odds with what most Americans really care about....Working families and poor communities need and deserve help because the free market has failed to generate shared prosperity — its famous unseen hand has become a closed fist." Read More

"What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the
community want for all its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy." ~ John Dewey

Until We Take Democracy Serious . . .
Free Market Schooling: Deborah Meier
PowerPlay: A Journal of Educational Justice

Excellent SEEDLINGS Show with Wes Fryer

Link to Podcast





I just had the chance to listen to the April 1 podcast from Seedlings with Bob, Alice, and Cheryl. It features Wes Fryer, and I have to say, it is superb! I share his views and highly recommend listening to his wise words.

Moving at the Speed of Creativity

G.O.T. Farms at Telstar

Click here for wide screen version.

TMS Art

Online Privacy

Essential Question: With what should we be concerned regarding online privacy?

Privacy Resources at LIM

School Technology Assessment

Resources at LIM Wiki

RttT, Florida, and Diane Ravitch

I've been reading Diane Ravitch's new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, and been following both Deborah Meier and Diane on Education Week's Bridging Differences blog. This week she speaks on what is going on in Florida as a result of the RttT initiative. Is anyone listening? Scapegoating of teachers continues across the land. Standards are being written by corporations and testing companies in anticipation of huge profits. Does anyone really care? Is this what education should be about in a democracy?

Diane Ravitch: Outrage in Florida

Washington Post: Florida's Terrible Teachers Bill a Test for Duncan

Glories of Google

Richard Byrne, Oxford Hills teacher and Free Technology for Teachers author, continues to amaze me with his productivity. Check out his new publications titled Google for Teachers.

Find versions here and here.


Google for Teachers

Sid Fleischman Remembered

By Pam Kenney

When I was a novice teacher in the early 70s, my passion was instilling in my students a love for reading. I spent hours reading classic children's literature, certain I'd find an abundance of books that would transform my children - -boys, girls, good readers, so-so ones--into lifelong bibliophiles. A lofty goal, I thought at the time. So we read The Wind in the Willows, Amos Fortune, White Fang, and The Secret Garden. The students who loved to read, often the girls, loved my choices and thrived. Too often, though, the boys struggled through the antiquated prose and responded, basically, "Huh?," when I tried to engage them in discussions and literature projects.

In 1987 I read a new book by Sid Fleischman, The Whipping Boy. I adored it from the first page. It was a little short, and the language was sometimes arcane, but, oh, the story! What third grader could resist a tale about a naughtly prince nicknamed "Brat" who had a whipping boy to endure the punishments for his misdeeds. There were even dirty, smelly road bandits, a ransom note, a dancing bear, and sewer rats to titillate young imaginations. All my students loved the book, but my boys were over the moon. Now here was a story they could relate to. They wanted to talk about it, write about it, and learn more about the Middle Ages. They wrote plays and happily strung garlic around their necks in tribute to their revered Hold-Your-Nose Billy. What fun we had! And how much those kids learned!

The Whipping Boy, which won the Newbery Medal, became a children's classic, and a story I used with students year after year. It's a book that belongs still in every elementary classroom in the land. Sid Fleischman died two weeks ago at age 90. How lucky for our children that Prince Brat and his cohorts will continue to live in their minds and hearts forever.

Learning People

"The central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." ~Eric Hoffer

Corporate Control of Public Education Policy

Some have said that the Common Core State Standards have been driven primarily by corporate officials, politicians and testing companies.



If that is the case . . .

• Who stands to profit?

• Should Corporations control educational Policy in the United States?

Below are some links that reflect on the issue:

Education Reform is the Best Stock on the Market

Who Will Profit from the Standards?

Conflict of Interest Arises as Concern in Standards Push

Pearson Education Looks Within to Beat McGraw Hill

Pearson Education: World's Leading Education Business is Launched

Alfie Kohn: Debunking the Case for National Standards

Susan Ohanian: Stop National Standards

Data Warehousing Will Destroy Your Soul

Schools Matter: Stimulating Corporate Control of Education

Business Round Table: Education, Innovation and Workforce Initiative