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Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction

Ralph Tyler presented a model of curriculum design in 1949 that is still the foundation of many designs used today. [...]

The Trouble With Boys

The latest book by Peg Tyre, The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do takes a long-deserved look at the way that male students are falling further and further behind their female counterparts.  For the last few decades there has been a push to ensure that educational opportunities for girls are equal to that of boys.  This book, and the people that agree with Tyre’s viewpoint (myself for one) are not attempting to take anything away from girls.  On the contrary, I am a strong supporter of expanding opportunities to the millions of girls who are denied an education.  This book does, however, take a look at why boys seem not to be as successful as girls in the same educational climate.

“What is it about males that makes them achieve less in school than females achieve?  That’s a vexing question … it becomes obvious that something about being male is undermining their academic success.” (p.9)

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World War II Remembered

Although I am not a big fan of studying history by only learning about wars, like the Vietnam site I posted previously, World War II Remembered, a project of Unified School District 230 in Spring Hill, Kansas, focuses on the effects of the war by preserving the oral histories of veterans.  The site offers more than these testimonies as it allows the visitor to get to know these veterans personally, and may have an impact on students’ as they begin to understand this generation that had this war play such a pivotal role in their lives and who will soon not be able to tell us about it any more.

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Vietnam: 30 Years Beyond War

Vietnam: 30 Years Beyond War is a beautifully arranged site by the San Jose Mercury News contains photo-journals of post-war Vietnam and could become a valuable tool for teachers of history, social studies and even politics to make real for their students what it means to rebuild nations and some of the lingering effects of a war that has long since ended. [...]

Getting a Word Ahead

word-ahead-logo Not too long ago, a regular commenter on this blog, Faiza Khan, let me know about her startup company, WordAhead.com – a collection of short videos that can help a person to learn some new words and even participate in creating the content.  Always interested in expanding my very own veritably voluminous vocabulary I decided to spend some time “playing” on the site and was pleased with what I found there.

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Learning with Free Rice

FreeRice is a great way to get some practice building up your vocabulary while simultaneously helping to provide free food for hungry people. Every question you answer correctly translates to 10 grains of rice that will be sent to people who need it. [...]

On Becoming a Leader (in Education)

Warren Bennis’ 1989 book, On Becoming a Leader, was revised and expanded for a 2003 edition (the links provided are now for the 2009 edition). In this classic, Bennis outlines some of the key characteristics that are common to leaders in all fields. He draws these conclusions from many interviews and biographies of past and present leaders, such as former presidents, business CEOs and college presidents. In explaining these concepts, Bennis often turns to the U.S. school system to point out how it is not conducive to producing future leaders as it has a tendency to train rather than to educate. His overall message is that it is vital for a leader to have a vision that can be clearly articulated to followers. That vision may need to evolve over time as it needs to fit in the context of the lives of the followers.

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Shame of the Nation

Jonathan Kozol’s 2005 book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America , looks at the issue of racial integration in the nation’s schools. Over 50 years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and forcing the integration of America’s schools, we have not yet achieved that goal. Kozol uses the passionate voices of teachers and students, mostly from urban New York City schools and the suburban areas of Long Island, to tell how the nation has been failing a large portion of its children and, in fact, creating a system of apartheid by withholding a proper education from so many children.

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Landmark Supreme Court Cases

Supreme Court Building While browsing for reference materials to support essays I am writing, I stumbled upon an excellent site that is a project of The Street Law & The Supreme Court Historical Society, Landmark Supreme Court Cases is designed to help teachers review the issues and decisions made in 17 of the most influential cases in the United States.  Cases discussed include: Roe v. Wade; Plessy v. Ferguson; and Brown v. Board of Education.  Resources include not just the full-text of the opinions, but also excerpts and summaries at three different reading levels.

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History Lessons

It is fascinating to read about events such as the American Revolution in a French textbook … 1) History becomes compartmentalized into an abstract string of facts that is not relevant to the world in which we live today. 2) It fosters a seperationist attitude in American students which will become increasingly damaging as the world grows more and more globally connected … So what should be done about this? [...]

Simple English

The concept is simple – write Wikipedia articles using a more basic vocabulary and grammar then appear on the main English language site. This makes the articles more accessible to children and those who are just learning English, by reducing the relative reading level needed to read and comprehend the article. [...]

The American Dream and the Public Schools

Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan B. Scovronick teamed up to show the ways in which the public education system advances, but also hinders, the ability to pursue the “American Dream”, in their 2003 book The American Dream and the Public Schools.  After first coming up with a definition of what the American dream is, they explore what Americans want and expect from public schools, in the areas of desegregation; finance reform; school choice; curriculum reform; inclusion; and multiculturalism, among others.  Their explanations center around three purposes of education: (1) advancement of the individual; (2) improvement of societal goals; (3) furthering the agenda of a particular group or special interest.

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The Disappearance of Childhood

Neil Postman, the NYU professor perhaps most known for his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, originally published in 1985, on the pervasive manner of television into our lives and our ways of communicating had previously written a book exploring the concept of childhood. The Disappearance of Childhood was originally published in 1982, but was revised and republished in 1994. Today’s post reviews that edition of the book and discusses the ways that the notion of childhood has been conceived in our minds may be eroding.

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Whatever It Takes

As an editor of the New York Times Magazine, Paul Tough is also a leading author on the issues of poverty, education, and the achievement gap. This new book takes a look at the idea Geoffrey Canada, the President and CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone, has for improving the success rates of African-American students, who, through the “accident of birth” were born into a place where their futures are more likely to end up in an early grave or in a prison cell than in a college lecture hall. His system of creating an “assembly line” of different services to address needs at different levels, starting with a prenatal care program for expecting parents, to after-school tutoring for high school students, and everything in between including a preschool, a charter school and a team of social workers is somewhat revolutionary in the battle against poverty.

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Savage Inequalities

Although this book is now a bit dated, its effect on the reader is not diminished. Kozol takes a look at the stark differences that are experienced by students in the public schools in the United States. Visiting schools in some of the poorest and wealthiest districts in the nation, Kozol speaks with students, parents, teachers and administrators. The inequalities that are observed clearly are savage and designed to perpetuate a sub-standard system for certain students whilst creating another strata of public education for other districts – this sometimes occurs even within the same district. School funding seems to be at the source of many of the problems Continue reading Savage Inequalities

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Curriki

Curriki TeacherJay has been a fan of this site for quite some time and is an active member.  The idea is to collaboratively form an ideal curriculum with professional educators as the contributors.  This approach is similar to the way software developers create open-source software – by making the programming code public and inviting anyone interested to modify and improve upon it to help create a better finished product.

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