"Across the board, all the moms mention one golden rule: Don't shout or yell at small children.
I asked Markham if the Inuit's no-yelling policy might be their first secret of raising cool-headed kids. "Absolutely," she says."
"What Briggs documented is a central component to raising cool-headed kids.
Which seems to be something the Inuit have known for hundreds, perhaps even, thousands of years."
Carol Black on Twitter: "Leanne @betasamosake Simpson: Whose learning "standards" are centered, whose are pushed to the periphery? @JennBinis https://t.co/eqEMZIQiaz"
@JennBinis Nope, because the answer to this problem is fundamentally incompatible w. legally mandated standards. Ethically. At a deep level.
@cblack__ And yet, there is no answer to the problem.
@cblack__ Who are the people we're talking about here? That is, if a child never wants to learn to read, do we shrug and say, ah well?
‏@JennBinis Sigh. Excessive fears about this are the source of so much bad policy.
@JennBinis What history? We haven't had history without compulsory standards for 100 years.
@cblack__ Amusingly, I looked up from a chapter on compulsory education during the Persian War (400BCE) to type this.
@JennBinis So what history validates the fear US children won't learn to read w/o compulsion? The fact they don't learn WITH compulsion?
@cblack__ you know that's not an actual fear, right? It was an example related to allowing ppl to do things we disagree with."
"The blithe disregard for such questions suggests the kiss up, kick down culture prevailing in the media and seemingly internalised throughout society as a whole.
We're increasingly acclimatised to the wealthy and the powerful facing no sanctions whatsoever for their wrongdoing, even as the poor are ground into the dirt for minor transgressions."
"While Germany and the Netherlands prefer to hand out fines in place of time behind bars, America basically has a dog-pile system. We give offenders time behind bars and probation and court costs and restitution/fines, while drastically reducing their opportunities for legal employment.
Because both Germany and the Netherlands end up incarcerating only a small percentage of offenders, they're actually able to enroll prisoners in rehabilitation programs, which increases their changes of not returning to crime. "Conditions of confinement," says Vera, "are less punitive and more goal-oriented." They also generally don't include people with mental illness, while American prisons are chock full of people who need help more than punishment."
"we’re trying something new: What if we invited people to come to campus and just to do something they love doing?
This is a different kind of teaching in that it’s spontaneously responding to a student’s curiosity in the moment. This is the kind of activity that enriches the school environment.
Will these new ideas work? I don’t know. But we’re going to find out.
There are two things we’re not going to. We’re not going to force students to participate in a battery of required activities, then use punishments and rewards to ensure compliance.
And, we’re not going to sit around watching Sir Ken Robinson’s “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” TED talk, lament the sad state of education in this country, & daydream about what it would be like if school was different.
As a society, we have to stop daydreaming about this."
"The global economic crisis is at least as political as the riots we've seen in the last few days. It has lasted far longer and done far more damage. We need not draw a straight line from the decision to bail out the banks to what's going on now in London. But we must not lose sight of what both events tell us about our current condition. Those who want to see law and order restored must turn their attention to a menace that no amount of riot police will disperse; a social and political order that rewards vandalism and the looting of public property, so long as the perpetrators are sufficiently rich and powerful."
"I was angry, because I wanted to know how this teacher could possibly have thought that this was an OK way to teach. Who could possibly think that kids could learn that way?
And I thought of a point I've made in dozens of presentations - "Put a good person in a bad system & the system wins too often." What created a system where an adult thought that sitting in front of students & lecturing in a monotone voice about any topic could possibly inspire a child to learn? To care?
How was this teacher educated? Did a teacher ever inspire her? What has this teacher's experience in the classroom been? Was there a time where she cared & had that care disrespected?
Was there a principal who said, "Just follow the curriculum?" Was there someone to mentor her who was able to offer profound advice, not merely survival tips?
Was/is there space for her to continue to be a learner?
Was there a specific moment when she just got tired? When she gave up? When it became "just a job?"…"
"The best teachers, I find, spend at least some of their evenings smacking themselves on the forehead – figuratively, at least – as they reflect on something that happened during the day. “Why did I decide that, when I could have asked the kids?” &, thinking about some feature of the course yet to come: “Is this a choice I should be making for the students rather than w/ them?” One Washington, DC creative writing teacher was pleased w/ himself for announcing to students that it was up to them to decide how to create a literary magazine – until he realized later that he had incrementally reasserted control. “I had taken a potentially empowering project & turned it into a showcase of what [I] could do.” It takes insight & guts to catch oneself at what amounts to an exercise in pseudodemocracy. Keeping hold of power – overtly for traditionalists, perhaps more subtly for those of us who think of ourselves as enlightened progressives – is a hell of a lot easier than giving it away."
"Incarceration in America is a failure by almost any measure. But what if the prisons could be turned inside out, with convicts released into society under constant electronic surveillance? Radical though it may seem, early experiments suggest that such a science-fiction scenario might cut crime, reduce costs, and even prove more just."
Comment from John Spencer: "I use the word accountability in my class, but I define it as "mutual trust." We keep each other accountable by giving an account of what we're learning - conferences, portfolios, informal meetings.
"absence of a step-by-step solution to parenting challenges can be terribly frustrating to people who believe that “practical” advice entails exactly that...really ought to be skeptical about advisers who do offer such solutions...Besides, one-size-fits-all strategies usually just turn out to be ways of doing things to children – in other words, variant of rewards (“positive reinforcement”) or punishments (“consequences”). By contrast, there are countless “working with” approaches...need to be worked out in each family. [can offer]...broadly conceived guidelines rather than specific instructions...ten examples. 1. Reconsider your requests. 2. Put the relationship first. 3. Imagine how things look from your child’s perspective. 4. Be authentic. 5. Talk less, ask more. 6. “Attribute to children the best possible motive consistent with the facts.” 7. Try to say yes. 8. Don’t be rigid. 9. Give kids more say about their lives. 10. Love them unconditionally."