In case you missed the news, American math test scores stayed essentially flat over the last couple years. Most major news outlets reported prominently that white, Hispanic and Black scores remained the same, maintaining the achievement gaps for racial minorities. Well, not all minorities. (Side note: Why didn’t the NYT or WP or AP decide [...]
Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Insert Asian math joke here
Posted in Education, tagged asians, math, naep, race, tests on October 16, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Eulogy for the Renaissance man
Posted in Education, Ethics and Morals, History, tagged division of labor, epistemology, knowledge, monomath, polymath, specialization on October 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I think Linus and I fancy ourselves polymaths or, at the very least, dabblers and dilettantes: despite my English teacher status, I could explain the laws of thermodynamics or solve a polynomial equation, whereas Linus, despite his scientific specialty, could easily expound on the various merits of The Wrens or detail the effect of the [...]
Nate Silver declares war; or, how can Oklahoma students be this stupid?
Posted in Education, tagged Education, fail, Nate Silver, Oklahoma on September 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Pollster and math genius Nate Silver of www.fivethirtyeight.com has declared war on a polling firm called Strategic Vision, LLC. You can read up on his posts on it here, here, here, here, and here. The crux of it is that they refuse to release one iota on their polling methodology (which is standard practice, apparently), [...]
The myth of “standardized testing”
Posted in Education, Lies, tagged back to school, no child left behind, standardized tests, tests on September 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
One of my big beefs with the current standardized testing set-up (other than its elimination of meaningful instruction time — my sophomores will be tested for two straight weeks starting Monday) is that the tests themselves are non-standardized. Nowhere is that clearer than in New York, where the Regents Exam, the state-wide benchmark exam, has [...]
Chinglish no die
Posted in Education, Useless Bullshit, tagged china, chinglish, english, engrish, language on August 31, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The Guardian reports an unfortunate drive to kill Chinglish (or the more generic, Engrish), the delightful union of English words and Chinese grammar/syntax/brains. This can result in rather humorous non sequiturs (“I TOOK A SHOWER AFTER PLAYING SEX.“) to official blunders.
As with all attempts to standardize a language with prescriptive rules, I have no doubt [...]
Dear Me,
Posted in Education, tagged dear me, motivation, teaching on August 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I have students do an activity at the beginning of the year called “Dear Me.” In it, students write a letter to themselves in the future. This serves a few purposes: it provides me with a writing sample, gives students a refresher on letter-writing conventions, etc. It also serves as an investment tool — students [...]
Oh, man it’s back…
Posted in Education, Music, Video, tagged back to school, rap, school, sick beats on August 24, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Classes resumed after summer vacation. I’ll be treated to many more scenes like this one, I imagine.
BREAKING: Urban schools still suck
Posted in Education, News, Obama, tagged chicago, high school, no child left behind, test scores on July 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’m in the Seoul Incheon airport (which is awesome, I might add) killing time between flights, so I don’t have much time.
Nevertheless, I wanted to direct some attention to this report from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago about how Chicago schools, shockingly, have not dramatically improved despite promises to the contrary.
The [...]
Yo, Teach…!
Posted in Education, Movies, Television, Useless Bullshit, Video, tagged English teachers, funny people, jason schwartzman, teaching, yo teach on July 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I think viral marketing is a bit silly, but I give Funny People’s marketing people 20,000 points for their hilarious promos for fake TV show “Yo, Teach…!” The premise is that Jason Schwartzman’s character stars in a new NBC television sitcom detailing the life of an inner-city high school English teacher.
Things [...]
Mannish Boy
Posted in Education, tagged better schools, Education, emotional development, first year teaching, mannish boy, teachers on June 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »
(This is the second in a series of reflective posts about my first year teaching. The first can be found here.)
“I spell mmm, aaa child, nnn
That represents man
No B, O child, Y
That mean mannish boy”
– Muddy Waters, “Mannish Boy”
As a first year teacher straight out of college, I found myself not too far removed in [...]
