This post may be a little out of character, but there are things here that need to…
Education
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cross-posted at The G Bitch Spot Times-Picayune/nola.com, Artist colony at Colton school to disband; Matt Damon to help…
- The opening prayer oddly asked God to still or help instill “self-control” and “punctuality” in the students under discussion, and he was not talking about Holy Name or Lusher.
- Asher’s teacher-blaming started from her opening words–that the children haven’t failed, it’s that “adults have failed to teach” them.
- Guttierrez calling the RSD the “ultimate accountability” body was rich considering recent news.
This is second installment of Gabacho’s review of the book Academically Adrift. Student culture is characterized less…
This is also important at a time when universities and colleges are experiencing economic pressure as well as increased competition for high performing students and a demand to provide “practical majors” that will bring a quick return on an educational investment. For a number of years, many of us have contended that students need to build their skills as competent thinkers, readers and writers. Clear thinking, reasoning, expression are necessary skills in any field, and I have yet to hear anyone argue the contrary.
At a recent conference of the Council of Independent Colleges, college presidents expressed their growing fear that liberal arts colleges are facing terminal illness. This is particularly ironic given new data from the Social Science Research Council that says: “Students majoring in liberal arts fields see “significantly higher gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills over time than students in other fields of study.” Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the smallest gains… “
cross-posted at The G Bitch Spot See Teachers’ Unions or Teachers’ Unions? for Canada’s answer to Colbert’s…
At the beginning of my teaching career, delighted by class discussion of readings, yet appalled by the quality of my students’ essays and unsure how to explain concepts that I had assumed were intuitive to young writers, I set about grimly, devising a means of teaching them, these embodiments of the “crisis in literacy,” casualties of the Reagan era, MTV addicts, as I often heard them described in faculty meetings, calibration sessions, and the mail room.
Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone on The Colbert Report Jan. 4, 2011: Stephen Colbert: Who’s…
A few years ago, when I was working at an elite liberal arts college, I held a freelance job as a writer for the college magazine. Part of my duties included covering speakers who came to campus, one of whom was Cornel West. The piece I wrote, ‘Single Man March,’ was drawn from the six pages of notes that I took, notes that transcribed every word that was being uttered in the room, from the introduction of the speaker to the last response from Mr. West to a question from the audience. I don’t always work that way.
I have drifted a bit, getting away from the simile and metaphor business, and wondered aloud about what makes up an undergraduate experience. Is it all about books, libraries and papers, or does it have something to do with late nights, binge drinking and waking up in a strange apartment naked. Come on! We’ve all been there. You go to the bathroom, trying to remember the name of the person in the bedroom, look into the mirror and see the fear in your own eyes.
cross-posted at RuFreeman.com
So I watched the movie, Waiting for Superman, on opening night here at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. And, yes, I’ve linked the film to the website that allows people to take action rather than the one that allows people to find showtimes because action is necessary and showtimes are easy to find, but in case you can’t, here’s the link to the movie itself: Waiting for Superman/movie. The documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim, breaks down the state of education in the United States and leaves us with the heartbreaking facts:
cross-posted at The G Bitch Spot In every high school I’ve been in this semester, charter or…