“What’s the matter with us?” demands Bob Herbert in his August 7 New York Times column. “The latest dismal news on the leadership front” proving that we’ve become “a nation of nitwits” comes courtesy of a report from the College Board, he says. “At a time when a college education is needed more than ever to establish . . . (Read More)
Getting Rid of Grades: Case Studies
Given that most schools still send home report cards with letter or number grades, and most teachers still put these letters or numbers on students’ individual assignments, you would never guess that most studies of the effects of grades find that they’re destructive in multiple ways.
For nearly a century, in fact, educators have been pointing . . . (Read More)
Ted Sizer and Jerry Bracey: An Appreciation
The field of education lost two great men in October. Ted Sizer and Jerry Bracey were distinguished by the issues that animated them and the way they pursued their respective interests, but each made such an enormous contribution that his death leaves us bereft.
In person, Ted Sizer was good-humored and gracious to a fault. Unlike those people . . . (Read More)
Twenty-first Century Skills? It Depends What You Mean…
About a year ago, I was invited to write a chapter for an education anthology on the subject of “21st-century skills.” I replied as follows: “To be perfectly honest, I’m never sure what’s meant by the phrase ’21st century’ when it’s used as a modifier for ‘skills,’ ‘standards,’ or ‘schooling.’ The stuff that interests me, such as . . . (Read More)
More Evidence That Incentives Fail
Punished by Rewards is surely the only book from which excerpts were simultaneously published in Parents magazine and the Harvard Business Review – evidence of how pervasive is our culture’s embrace of pop-behaviorism. In the family, the workplace, and the classroom, more-powerful people try to control less-powerful people by dangling some sort of reward in front of them if . . . (Read More)
Beware of School “Reformers”
Por Qué Está Sobrevalorada La Autodisciplina
Teachers Who Refuse to Hand Out the Tests
What if they gave a test and nobody came? Or what if all the students came, but the teachers refused to give them a test? The civil rights movement succeeded not only because good laws were eventually passed (mandating desegregation) but because ordinary people refused to obey bad laws. Rather than just complaining about policies . . . (Read More)
Gleanings #3: Test Boycotts, Death to the Syllabus, and Why Secretaries of Education Are Never Educators
MORE GLEANINGS – that is, writings from various sources likely to be of interest to anyone drawn to the work on this website. This month, we feature an article, a website, a quote, and news of an important campaign of resistance. Also, note that a new essay about progressive education has been posted elsewhere on this . . . (Read More)
Are Fewer Young People Reading for Pleasure?
Several years ago, a teacher who regularly invited her students to “drop everything and read” their favorite books was asked by a colleague whether she was still setting aside class time for that purpose. She replied, “We haven’t been doing any reading since we started preparing the kids for the reading test.”
That response says as . . . (Read More)