Philosophy Without A Home

My letter to my local representatives concerning  education  reform.  It has come to my attention that a special committee on education reform has been created to hold hearings on education reform.  There has also been some mention of Geoffrey Canada and his new education reform movement called Stand for Children.  In my years as a teacher, student, education specialist, and education blogger I have done much research and writing on the topic of education reform. You are welcome to read my  blog . I suggest searching for key terms such as firing teachers, quality education, and reform.  There is no doubt that education is changing along with just about everything else in the world. However, making changes quickly and expecting fast reform is a sure recipe for failure.  I know that Mr. Canada has had some success with the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ). Though not as stellar as we are sometimes lead to believe. However, what is less publicized is the  true cost of his private ref

Norman Rockwell paintings look cool. The quintessential American life. They are a moments captured in time, but they aren’t flowing emotions. They evoke emotion, but attempts to recreate what you think the participants are feeling fails and fails miserably. We have everything we need to create our own Norman Rockwell painting. We just don’t realize he didn’t paint reality, he painted ideals. “He had the ability to paint things not the way they were, but the way people wanted them to be ,” Clemens said. Photo and quote from Denverpost.com The most memorable moments are not the scripted scenes or the moments we imagine. No, the most memorable moments are when something happens unexpectedly and instead of getting angry the people let go and enjoy the moment. Happiness in life can only happen when we give up control.

My rewritten philosophy of education, cross posted at my student blog . Comments encouraged. Educational Philosophy           Schools can and do influence most aspects of their students. To effectively educate students schools must reflect the attitude of the local community and build a vision derived from these values. At the same time not compromising on the needs and expectations of a larger community.             It is the responsibility of the school to teach the curriculum, but more importantly schools must engage students in becoming life-long learners.   Schools should be safe places for students to experiment and take chances, to follow their interests, and learn independently beyond the normal scope of the curriculum.             With the curriculum as a concrete foundation to build on, teachers can guide students as individuals in learning the basic skills of deconstructing problems and creating solutions. With patience and care students will learn the skills necessary fo

I've highlighted the parts of my educational philosophy I still like. I've also added a short rewrite I did about two years ago while looking for a job. (mostly just a copy paste job) We must teach our students the skills to think and reason critically. Critical thinking is taught through the vehicle of other subjects when we ask students to solve problems rather than memorize answers. Students are given time to explore concrete areas on their own until they discover regular patterns on their own. As these patterns are discovered the teacher gently pushes towards formalizing the rules. For example students are given blocks to count with; the physical presence of the blocks is something they are familiar with and they learn to add by putting blocks into a pile one at a time. The blocks are concrete and easily understandable to the children. As they become more familiar with the results they move into adding with fingers and eventually to doing it in their head. As

I hope everyone has a great Winter Break. Stay safe and we will see you next year. A little something for your reading and viewing pleasure. Lockhart’s Lament .  - The views of a middle school math teacher who also spent many years as a math researcher and college professor. Alan Keys Ted Talk . boring for about the first 10 minutes, but then he gets into some thoughts on teaching math. What do you think? Should we change the way we teach math? How would it work? I've thought about it before here .

My philosophy of education from 10 years ago. I am required to rewrite and condense to 150 words by January 3rd, 2011. It will be interesting to see how much of my philosophy has changed after having actually taught. Never in my wildest dreams did I think reducing the number of words would be the most difficult part of a writing project. Philosophy of Education Schools are a major influence on the lives of almost everyone, whether they like it or not. Many of our basic notions of good and bad are in part formed by our early education. Take for example “All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” One of the reasons this book was so popular was because so many people can identify with the premise. In our early years we learned that good people share, wash their hands, put away toys, etc... From the very beginning we learn some of our most basic mores in school. Are our school trying to teach this? Should we be teaching this as educators? Do we have a choice? The average A

Image via Wikipedia Ok so a couple of videos have been floating through my PLN this week.  I followed them to their youtube home and found one mathmusician .  Oddly enough I remember one musician spending hours , or what seemed like hours, telling me how chords in music aren’t random but based on mathematical principals. So I’ve always known there was some sort of connection between math and music, I’m just not really sure of the connection.  You won’t either after this blog post, but I hope someone figures it out and explains it to me. Anyway, the videos she creates are pretty cool and do a great job of connecting real world mathematics to doodling.  After watching the videos I thought it would be great time filler for those half days when you can’t really teach anything and the students just don’t want to learn anyway. Show them the video and turn them loose to be creative. Just be sure to ask them to explain what they can of the math before you hang them on the wall. If you do

Image via Wikipedia Today, I don't have a resource so much as a request for collaboration. If you haven't noticed yet the country is under a strong push for common standards. What they call Common Core Standards . On June 10, 2010 Illinois adopted the Common Core Standards. These standards will be adopted in three phases according to the Illinois State Board of Education. I know there are people who are spending a lot of time getting us ready to meet these new standards. However, I don't see any reason why we should leave all of that work to the administration. I also see a lot of reasons why we should, at the very least, show what we know. With that in mind I would like everyone, or as many people as possible, to share their favorite lesson and align it to the new Common Core standards for mathematics.  Please, don't spend four hours making a new lesson and getting every little detail perfect. Take a lesson you already have and show us how it meets