Six on Schools: US Sec. of Education: "The education cabal vs. America’s kids"; 5 Simple Hacks That Will Cut Your Planning Ti
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"Similarly, a cabal has rooted itself between students and their education to protect “what is” at the expense of what could be.
Their fingers are in their ears, too, refusing to hear the chorus of voices demanding better. Instead of pursuing innovations for students, they pursue protections from politicians for themselves.
It’s a precarious paradox Alexander Hamilton and others warned us about.
The Federalist Papers, to which Hamilton contributed a great deal, cautioned against a tyranny of factions. These groups of agitators jealously protect and advance their own self-interests to the detriment of just about everyone else.
Sound familiar? Education unions, the association of this, the organization of that … those are today’s factions. One of their own, the late Al Shanker, said this: “I don’t see a voice for students in the bargaining process. I think it’s one of the facts of life … the consumer, basically, is left out.”
That union boss admitted then what’s still true today: Factions keep student voices out. But it’s way past time to let them in!"
5 Simple Hacks That Will Cut Your Planning Time In Half
With far fewer disruptions, you’re free to focus on student learning.
You’re free to teach and inspire and build influential relationships.
You’re free to recede into the background just to observe, to think, and to make adjustments.
In other words, you’re free to do your job.
It also allows you to spend your mental energy preparing great lessons rather than figuring out how to better control your class.
Which leads us to the first of five simple hacks that will cut your planning time in half. ... "
"I, too, wish life were as simple as it is described in the first chapter of Eckhart Tolle’s bestselling book The Power of Now. It opens with the story of a beggar sitting on a box. A stranger comes along and asks the beggar what’s inside. The beggar, who has sat on the box for years, has never thought to open it. When finally he does, it is full of gold. Thus we are all beggars seeking something from someone else when everything we need is already there inside us.
But stories such as this are misleading, if not dishonest. Personal explanations for success actually set us up for failure. TED Talks and talk shows full of advice on what to eat, what to think and how to live seldom work. Self-help fixes are like empty calories: The effects are fleeting and often detrimental in the long term. Worse, they promote victim blaming. The notion that your resilience is your problem alone is ideology, not science.
We have been giving people the wrong message. Resilience is not a DIY endeavour. Self-help fails because the stresses that put our lives in jeopardy in the first place remain in the world around us even after we’ve taken the “cures.” The fact is that people who can find the resources they require for success in their environments are far more likely to succeed than individuals with positive thoughts and the latest power poses.
What kind of resources? The kind that get you through the inevitable crises that life throws our way. A bank of sick days. Some savings or an extended family who can take you in. Neighbours or a congregation willing to bring over a casserole, shovel your driveway or help care for your children while you are doing whatever you need to do to get through the moment. Communities with police, social workers, home-care workers, fire departments, ambulances and food banks. Employment insurance, pension plans or financial advisers to help you through a layoff.
Striving for personal transformation will not make us better when our families, workplaces, communities, health-care providers and governments fail to provide us with sufficient care and support. The science shows that all the internal resources we can muster are seldom of much use without a nurturing environment. Furthermore, if those resources are not immediately at hand, we are better off trying to change our world to gain those resources than we are trying to change ourselves.
For more than 20 years, I have been a family therapist working with hard-to-reach young people while also holding a research chair that has let me to study resilience around the world. The Resilience Research Centre at Dalhousie University, which I lead, investigates why some people “beat the odds” and do far better than expected. Unlike many other research centres, our team is focused not on personal traits but on social and physical ecologies – the natural environments in which we live – and how these create well-resourced individuals who make success look easy.
Our research shows that even the worst problems are not beyond the control of individuals if we think about changing environments more than changing ourselves. Here’s an example from someone you will never see in a TED Talk. ... "
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"Black Lives Matter Organization also called for a charter moratorium at the same time as the NAACP. I mention this because a charter advocate on Twitter belittled the NAACP by saying its members were aging and out of touch. He could not say the same about BLM. Frankly, the fact that the far-right libertarian Wall Street Journal supports charters is reason enough to question the motives behind the charter “movement.” Unlike the civil rights movement, which had a broad base among people of color, the drive for charters is financed by hedge fund managers, equity investors, entrepreneurs, and major corporations. These are not bastions of progressivism. Nor is Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal.
Derrick Johnson, president of the National NAACP, answered the editorial.
He wrote:
Regarding your May 7 editorial “An NAACP Revolt on Charters”: Let us be clear—a quality education should be provided to all children. As we commemorate the 65th anniversary of the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision, we continue to face a legacy problem that can only be fixed if our nation commits to prioritizing education and reforming inadequate and unequal operations that only continue to harm students.
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"Schools must provide adequate reading programs and reading remediation for students who need more assistance. But the recent report on dyslexia recommending intensive phonics for all children by the PBS News Hour, through Education Week, is irresponsible, short on facts, and presents biased reporting…
This report took place in Arkansas, heavily influenced by the Waltons, who seek to privatize public education. Arkansas funds Teach for America. The state is anti-teachers and does not support teachers unions."
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