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Saturday, December 18, 2010 In The News: Trouble For Atlanta's Schools Are some school districts just too big? The Atlanta Public Schools tend to 49,000 students. That is not huge, but it may be beyond optimum. Having said that, Lewisville ISD in North Texas has about 52,000 students and it is well-managed. We could note any number of other examples. Nonetheless, it sometimes seems that our districts (and campuses) can be too large for their own good. Is this so? For a bit on Atlanta's troubles, quoted from the article you can click below to read in full: "Did any school district in the country have a tougher week than the one in Atlanta? First, criminal investigators began digging anew into accusations of widespread cheating on state standardized tests that had been plaguing the district for two years. The allegations, which center on dozens of employees who are suspected of changing test answers to improve scores, have already been the focus of investigations by the state and the Atlanta school system that have cost more than $1 million." "....The Atlanta school board, meanwhile, is in such disarray that a team from the regional agency that provides accreditation for the 49,000-student district showed up on Wednesday for its own investigation into whether infighting was keeping the board from governing properly.""...At City Hall and in corporate offices around town, the talk is about how best to find a successor for the schools superintendent, Beverly L. Hall, who announced her resignation last month." "...The board’s conflict is at the center of whether the district can keep its accreditation, said Mark Elgart, president of the regional accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. A team from the agency arrived here on Wednesday for three days of interviews throughout the district."
"...The district will learn in January whether it will face sanctions or
lose its accreditation, which could hurt students’ chances for getting
into certain universities and securing scholarships."
Click here for the entire story
Better days ahead for Atlanta Public Schools...we hope. Posted at 1:27 PM (permalink)
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Saturday, December 18, 2010 Photo Of The Day: Facebook Is Getting MeToday's Photo Of The Day is a themed shot from a photographer I've already featured, Rishi Bandopadhay (A Lot On My Mind). Well, I---like Rishi---have succumbed to Facebook! I have been at conflict with myself about it for quite some time, but after years of resistance, I decided to take the plunge. Low and behold, in the last 24 hours I've communicated with dozens of great people I've known over the years...but for the most part had lost contact with! What a delight!  This photo is by Rishi Bandopadhay. The photo was taken June 1, 2010 in Plano, Texas. It is posted on Flickr here. Find me on Facebook at dan.s.martin.edconnections Posted at 9:40 AM (permalink)
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Friday, December 17, 2010 Discipline: What Matters And What Doesn't?Dress code and related issues were a daily challenge as a school administrator. Even when I worked in a school that had "uniforms," dress code matters were ever present. I'll revisit dress at a later date. Today, one of the "related issues." --------> Hair. Stories like the one below are not new, but they are becoming much more common. Conformity is at an all time low. Respect for authority may be at an all time low. Relativism is at an all time high. The trend seems to be clear. What is a school to do? Where is the line? How slippery is the slope? What matters and what doesn't? Posted at 12:58 PM (permalink)
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Friday, December 17, 2010 Photo Of The Day: Hands On Anatomy Lesson In IndiaPhoto of the Day will be a new feature on this blog. All photos have a Creative Common License, meaning you can use them for non-commercial purposes. Please click here to review the license if you intend to use the photo. Photos will generally have education and young people as the subject. I will include photos from around the world, many in classrooms. I don't want to over define what Photo of the Day will be. Some will support a theme...and others will just be pictures I thought would be neat or interesting to educators. Maybe you'll even come across pictures you or your colleagues can use for your class or school! That kind of sharing is a big part of the mission of this blog! |
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Friday, December 17, 2010 Pass It On Education Content: The Secret Powers Of Time"Philip George Zimbardo (born March 23, 1933) is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is president of the Heroic Imagination Project. He is known for his Stanford prison study and authorship of various introductory psychology books and textbooks for college students, including The Lucifer Effect and The Time Paradox." The above is how Wikipedia introduces Professor Zimbardo. I became familiar with his work a couple of decades ago when watching a feature on "60 Minutes" about the 1971 Stanford prison study: "...in which 24 normal college students were randomly assigned to be "prisoners" or "guards" in a mock prison located in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford (three additional college students were selected as alternates, but did not participate in the study). The two week planned study into the psychology of prison life ended only after 6 days due to emotional trauma being experienced by the participants. The students quickly began acting out their roles, with "guards" becoming sadistic and "prisoners" showing extreme passivity and depression." This study was inspired by the work of Stanley Milgram a decade earlier, in 1961 at Yale University. The Milgram Experiment suggested the extent to which humans will follow the directives of authority figures even when it seems at odds with their belief system, their immediate comfort level, or even what most of us consider humane treatment of other human beings. These are two powerful psychology and sociology pieces that, as a teacher, I used in some of my classes in an attempt to suggest how humans are able to perpetrate the awful, even genocidal, events we were studying in government and history. The students really responded to this lesson! They would still be talking about the lesson for weeks afterwards! I recommend these studies highly, however the purpose of this post is to present some of Professor Zimbardo's more recent work. Specifically, RSA Animate (featured in earlier posts) and Professor Zimbardo teamed up to present one of his talks using the really cool RSA Animate presentation style. I just love this RSA Animate stuff! This one gets us to think a lot, including about how we reach others (students, for example) who do not share the same time perspective we follow (most often, subconsciously). Check It Out! Pass It On!
Posted at 9:13 AM (permalink)
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Thursday, December 16, 2010 Money Out There: NASA Middle School Aerospace Scholars (MAS)Do you know a middle school science educator who would love to have a closer association with NASA? The State of Texas funds a program called Middle School Aerospace Scholars (MAS). They describe it this way: "To encourage integration of NASA instructional materials into existing classroom curriculum, teachers will be selected to participate in Middle School Aerospace Scholars (MAS). Funding for MAS is provided by the State of Texas and administered by the NASA Johnson Space Center. Teachers will apply online independently or as teams. Selected teams will participate in the following:
 I bet you know someone who could benefit from this grand opportunity! Check It Out! Pass It On! Posted at 5:54 PM (permalink)
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Thursday, December 16, 2010 Photo Of The Day: A Lot On My MindPhoto of the Day will be a new feature on this blog. All photos have a Creative Common License, meaning you can use them for non-commercial purposes. Please click here to review the license if you intend to use the photo. Photos will generally have education and young people as the subject. I will include photos from around the world, many in classrooms. I don't want to over define what Photo of the Day will be. Some will support a theme...and others will just be pictures I thought would be neat or interesting to educators. Maybe you'll even come across pictures you or your colleagues can use for your class or school! That kind of sharing is a big part of the mission of this blog!  This photo is by Rishi Bandopadhay. The photo was taken May 10, 2010 in Plano, Texas. It is posted on Flickr here. Posted at 4:47 PM (permalink)
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Thursday, December 16, 2010 Trends: "Parent Trigger" Coming To A State Near You?This is a followup to my post, "Parent-Trigger" Law (and Parent Empowerment). The legal right for parents to decide a school's future by popular vote may be expanded to states across the country. This article suggests that New Jersey may be next. The article begins: "A New Jersey state legislator wants to give parents the power to pull the "trigger" on failing schools in a bill he introduced Monday. Posted at 8:51 AM (permalink)
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Thursday, December 16, 2010 Education Funny: Will We Be Tested On This? Posted at 7:39 AM (permalink)
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010 STAAR: Texas Assessment Conference PowerPointsEarlier today I posted "STAAR Trek"--- a PowerPoint from the general session of the Texas Assessment Conference. For more, any of seventeen other PowerPoints used during the conference may be downloaded from this helpful TEA web page!  What a resource! Check It Out! Pass It On! Posted at 6:00 PM (permalink)
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010 Pass It On Education Tools: The National Science Digital Library (NSDL)Do you know a Science teacher? Someone who is interested in Science? Math? Learning in general! They'd probably love to know about this website! It is a rich resource. Totally free. "NSDL is the Nation's online library for education and research in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. NSDL receives the majority of its funding through the generous support of the National Science Foundation. Individual NSDL collections and services also receive funding from a wide variety of public and private sources. As of October 2010, NSDL contains 120 collections and over 132,000 records, in addition to other supporting user services and content, such as NSDL news and online exhibits. New resources are added to the Library every week." Check It Out! Pass It On!
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010 Pass It On Education Tools: STAAR Overview From The Texas Assessment ConferenceAs previous posts have discussed, Texas is adopting a new state assessment system called STAAR. One of EdClick's fantastic customers, Pilot Point ISD, has posted a PowerPoint (STAAR Trek) on their district website from the Texas Assessment Conference held November 30th-December 2nd in Austin.  When you click "To Slideshow" on the page, the view will change to one like that below and it will then present the slides:  Download the actual PowerPoint file here! Check It Out! Pass It On! Posted at 10:23 AM (permalink)
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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 In The News: How They Topped PISA RankingsI think this is a nice follow-up to the last post on high school stress. It also ties in nicely with previous posts of late on the PISA international rankings, as well as the more general discussion we've had in recent posts regarding just what it is we want from our schools and what demands are we willing to ask of people to achieve this. This is an unflattering analysis of how the city of Shanghai and the other "Confusion cultural circle" countries scored at the top of PISA rankings. It is detailed and includes two rather insightful blog posts from this author's readers and expert consultants. Read the entire post, "How Shanghai Topped PISA Rankings-- And Why It Is Not Big News In China."  Posted at 6:58 PM (permalink)
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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Trends: Stress and the High School StudentThe New York Times Opinion Pages has a daily feature called "Room For Debate." After a brief introduction, six "debaters" address various aspects of the day's topic. Occasionally they address education matters. Yesterday their topic was, "Stress and the High School Student."  Posted at 5:54 PM (permalink)
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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Pass It On Education Tools: How Stuff Works? Discovery WebsiteScience teachers, and the inquisitive among us, should be familiar with this fascinating Discovery website! In their words: HowStuffWorks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Discovery Communications, is the award-winning source of credible, unbiased, and easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works. Founded by North Carolina State University Professor Marshall Brain in 1998, the site is now an online resource for millions of people of all ages. From car engines to search engines, from cell phones to stem
cells, and thousands of subjects in between, HowStuffWorks has it
covered. No topic is too big or too small for our expert editorial
staff to unmask ... or for you to understand. In addition to
comprehensive articles, our helpful graphics and informative videos
walk you through every topic clearly, simply and objectively. Our
premise is simple: Demystify the world and do it in a simple, clear-cut
way that anyone can understand.
Check It Out! Pass It On! Posted at 3:16 PM (permalink)
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Monday, December 13, 2010 In The News: New Education PollNPR posted an Associated Press article today highlighting the results of a just released Associated Press-Stanford University Poll on education. The article is rather detailed and can be found here. The study itself can be downloaded in pdf format here. The beginning of the article below is followed by a few quotes I took note of. It begins, "Blaming teachers for low test scores, poor graduation rates and the other ills of American schools has been popular lately, but a new survey wags a finger closer to home. An Associated Press-Stanford University Poll on education found that 68 percent of adults believe parents deserve heavy blame for what's wrong with the U.S. education system — more than teachers, school administrators, the government or teachers unions. Only
35 percent of those surveyed agreed that teachers deserve a great deal
or a lot of the blame." "...Most said education in their local public schools is excellent or good, but 67 percent also believe the U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to education." "...But a majority of parents see improvement in the system since they were in school..." "...Educating parents about how the school system works and welcoming them to get involved may also help their children...""Without programs to educate parents, everyone is working in some stage of ignorance..."
As an administrator, I really wanted to get parents involved. A few years ago, when I became principal of an intermediate school, we set aside a classroom to use as a parent volunteer room. I had big plans for that program, but regretfully it didn't get as much traction as I had anticipated. Clearly, parent participation at the schoolhouse is relatively strong in elementary school, but quickly tails off as young people enter perhaps the most vulnerable period of their lives, the teen years. Too often at the secondary level we are missing an opportunity to have parents involved in the daily working of our campus. Parents bring subject area expertise and/or general academic knowledge that can be valuable for tutoring and other instruction. Other parents have especially big hearts and emotional intelligence for working with young people, as mentors for instance. In fact, anyone can provide a stabilizing adult presence, or a helping hand with a special project. There is a role for most anyone in a healthy community school. As an assistant principal at one of the wealthiest high schools in Texas, Highland Park High School, I always thought that one of the coolest of their many cool traditions is that parents serve all of the food during school lunches! Go figure! One of the wealthiest districts in the State has parents dishing out the food! PTA parents are connecting with daily student campus life at HPHS in this manner. It is just great! In so many ways, parents can and should be more involved in our secondary schools than they are. What are the impediments? What can we as educators do to better utilize parental involvement at all levels? Are we doing enough at our campuses? In our districts? Looking at the question from another angle entirely: can we better educate young people by better educating parenting adults? Do public schools have a role or responsibility to nurture fundamental parenting skills and knowledge? Over the years, more than one person has noted to me the irony that we spend so much time in our schools teaching so much that isn't nearly as applicable to life as parenting (and money skills). When do young adults learn about these two central life skills? At home? As Dr. Tennant asked in an earlier post, "Do We Trust Ourselves?" (or, our neighbors!) Posted at 5:24 PM (permalink)
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Monday, December 13, 2010 In The News: Child Nutrition At SchoolI'd like to think that POTUS was influenced by my November 18th blog post-- Trends: Child Nutrition & Physical Education to Improve Academics. Or, maybe Mrs. POTUS? Seriously though. From CNN today: Posted at 4:13 PM (permalink)
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Monday, December 13, 2010 Pass It On Education Content: RSA Animate (21st Century Enlightenment)One of my new favorite things is a series of animated shorts by RSA Animate of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. RSA has been "a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress" for over 250 years. They describe their approach as "multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action."  In an earlier post I introduced you to perhaps my favorite RSA Animate piece: Changing Education Paradigms. I also posted a similar production by Steve Johnson (not related to RSA), Where Good Ideas Come From, promoting the thesis of his new book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. Now, I'd like to introduce you to 21st Century Enlightenment, by Matthew Taylor. It is another exceptional, thought provoking 11-minute piece. Check It Out! Pass It On!
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Sunday, December 12, 2010 Trends: How Accountable Will We All End Up Being?Many social media on the internet now provide a forum for speech of all kind, including some examples we might wish away. "Is ignorance bliss?" I asked myself this question for days before I wrote this post. Or, "is forewarned forearmed?" So many other questions about it had me leaning against writing about the topic. After discussing it with a number of other educators, however, none of whom were aware the website below and others like it exist, I decided to post about it. Indeed, there are other such websites. And the likelihood that there will be more with rising participation is very high. The internet gives individuals a stage (and a huge potential audience) to voice their opinion on people, places, and things. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Guilty by opinion. Praised if lucky, uh, I mean deserving. It is all so public. Much like the teacher-ratings for individual teachers many states are now publicizing (I wrote about it in a blog entry-- In The News: California Teacher Ratings Released; New York Teacher Ratings Release Delayed), this can feel downright personal and, I bet, can often be off-the-mark! In fact, though those official ratings in the LA Times might get seen by more people, the types of comments that can be left on sites like the one below can certainly produce as least as much damage even when viewed by fewer people. So, in considering whether to post on this topic, I came down on the side of.......when in a mine field, isn't it best to know as much about the situation as possible? What can we as individuals do to best navigate this mine field? What are the implications for education professionals, campuses, and districts? Clearly it is better to consider these questions sooner rather than later.  Click Here To Go To The Website When school personnel consider these questions sooner rather than later, potential problems can be more easily defused and this potential "threat" can actually become an opportunity!!! That is the ticket!
A few questions and suggestions for you to consider:
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Sunday, December 12, 2010 In The News: Parent-Trigger Law (and Parent Empowerment)In California there is now a "parent-trigger" law whereby parents can mandate school shutdowns or charter-school conversions through a petition drive. Under the state's new "parent-trigger" law, the signatures of at least half the parents at a campus are required in order to launch the changes. After an effort to use this provision recently, some parents are rescinding their signatures to convert McKinley Elementary into a charter school that would operate outside the direct control of the Compton Unified School District.  Will "parent-triggers" become a national trend? Parents are increasingly empowered in our school systems. Is this a positive trend? Like everything else, it is no doubt a mixed bag. What can we as educators do to accentuate the positives of parent empowerment while minimizing our exposure to the negative aspects? Beyond simply exhibiting excellence in general, building capital in advance of "issues" seems to be one of the most effective ways to ride the wave of an increasing level of parent empowerment in our school systems. One of the more important ways to build this capital is through helpful, consistent communication between the school and parents. Is your school doing enough in this critical area of operations? Posted at 11:36 AM (permalink)
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Sunday, December 12, 2010 Money Out There: The Kennedy Center Inspirational Teacher AwardsIn my November 12th post, Three Words to Describe Your Most Impactful Teacher, I invited you to tell us about the most influential teacher in your education. I also encouraged you to make sure that person knows you value them so. Here is a great opportunity to show them beyond words! Posted at 10:27 AM (permalink)
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Saturday, December 11, 2010 Pass It On Education Content: Where Good Ideas Come FromA few days ago I posted a cool video from a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson about his perceived need for a genuine paradigm shift in education. Well, the same organization that produced that video, RSA, has produced several other similar videos. Edit: I just discovered that this is not one of them though! Instead, it is done by Steve Johnson as a promo for his book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. It is well-done nonetheless! What a talent it is to even be able to illustrate like this, beyond the other skills and talents evident in this production. Posted at 12:07 PM (permalink)
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Friday, December 10, 2010 Pass It On Education Content: MapsOne other resource on the CNN Student News website I love is the small collection of maps. They are large maps (8x11 at 100% resolution) in pdf format, available for download and free school use. There is a world map and a set of continental maps that look like the first two displayed below. There are also a few regional maps, featuring a key city, like the one of London below. I don't know if they add to or change the collection of these regularly. The available ones are valuable though! As you may or may not know, images in pdf documents can be easily "screen shot" and saved as images for use in presentations and such. If you can't use these in your classroom, I bet you know someone who can! Check It Out! Pass It On!    Posted at 6:30 PM (permalink)
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Friday, December 10, 2010 Pass It On Education Tools: CNN Student NewsBefore my days as an administrator, I was a Social Studies Composite teacher. Back in the day, as they say, CNN started a ten-minute student broadcast they called "CNN in the Classroom." This was the mid-90s. The program aired in the wee hours, only to be viewed by insomniacs or VCR editors...like myself! I taped episodes, edited particularly useful segments, and used them in lessons or as classroom conversation pieces. In hindsight, modern technologies make the effort I expended in this sort of lesson prep seem burdensome and inefficient in comparison with what teachers can do today. That is true of so many aspects of rich lesson prep. An example is CNN Student News. The program is still going strong as a daily ten-minute, commercial-free presentation of the news in a manner that is more approachable for school age people. It also presents stories that students find more relevant and goes beyond this to help students establish relevancy. The program now has a website, rich with supplementary materials, and the ten-minute program for each school day is posted (as a video "Daily Podcast" for download!) by around 7:00 pm the night prior.  Oh, how I would have loved this as a social studies teacher! This free daily broadcast from CNN, edited with simple software like iMovie (to really focus on the important pieces and add supporting content to guide the subsequent lesson) would have really simplified a portion of the lesson prep I undertook to make my class engaging for the students. Tools and resources are available like never before to produce lesson plans that involve students in lessons they find relevant and engaging. A big part of my mission with this blog is to locate those tools and resources so I can spotlight them here for you. In turn, I hope that you will share them with colleagues and friends to enrich their lessons and lives! Check It Out! Pass It On!
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Thursday, December 9, 2010 Pass It On Education Tools: MindWareThere is a bunch of holiday shopping going on right now. So much of what is being bought for young people is junk with little redeeming value. Since most of us reading this blog are educators of one sort or another, I thought you might appreciate a lead on where to get some gifts with substance for the holiday season. This is not a paid advertisement. I do not know anyone who works for this company. I just think their products look great for young people! Check It Out! Pass It On!
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