Ignition for Education

In a post last week, I discussed the possibility of a cultural shift among teachers, to teaching our profession to and learning our profession from each other; to becoming, as I put it, “a community of students of pedagogy.” I suggested ways in which we could teach and learn from each other: informal discussions, observations,…

In a previous post, I suggested that teachers work together to, “patiently explore and discuss how to teach the curriculum.” I argued that, No pedagogical approach, whether Harkness or other Socratic methods, or project-based learning, or constructivism, is the answer. What works depends on the material to be taught, student demographics, what the students are accustomed…

Careful the things you say Children will listen Careful the things you do Children will see And learn Children may not obey But children will listen Children will look to you For which way to turn To learn what to be Careful before you say “Listen to me” Children will listen *** I heard these…

If, today, you met a genius, would you be able to tell? Would you know by their conversation? Or would you need more information, perhaps about their achievements, reading habits, or IQ? All of those approaches—evaluating a person’s intellectual ability by their oral expression, other kinds of output, interaction with the intellectual world, psychometric measurements—are…

Teachers like to tell people that their pedagogies are “research based” or that “research shows” something or other to be true. They seldom give detail of the research, and I’ve come to suspect that it may sometimes be of low quality or exist only in rumor. If one person tells another that a certain conclusion…