Teachers' Lounge

I can't even remember the future anymore

Henry David Thoreau refused to pay the poll tax put in to support the American-Mexican War, and was sentenced to a night in jail. His friend Ralph Waldo Emerson came to visit him and asked him "David, what are you doing in there?" Thoreau replied, "What are you doing out there?"

I helped teach the U.S. Constitution during Constitution Week. Or what's left of it.

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster...for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm 300 pages into The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Some parallels run deep.

It was a dark hour indeed on Thursday when the United States Senate voted to end the constitutional republic and transform the country into a "Leader-State," giving the president and his agents the power to capture, torture and imprison forever anyone - American citizens included - whom they arbitrarily decide is an "enemy combatant." This also includes those who merely give "terrorism" some kind of "support," defined so vaguely that many experts say it could encompass legal advice, innocent gifts to charities or even political opposition to US government policy within its draconian strictures. All of this is bad enough - a sickening and cowardly surrender of liberty not seen in a major Western democracy since the Enabling Act passed by the German Reichstag in March 1933.

Quote from Fatal Vision: The Deeper Evil Behind the Detainee Bill

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

When did you lose it? I lost it when the U.S. government called off the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I couldn't stop crying.

"What luck for rulers that men do not think"
- Adolf Hitler

Keith Olbermann attempts to break the spell.

The solution?

An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens... I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

Quote from Thomas Jefferson on Politics and Government

Informed electorate? Uh oh.

I'm just tired, is all.

Tired of the baloney.

Tired of this train wreck of an administration.

And, most of all, I'm tired of George.

---

Keith Olbermann
National Yawn as Our Rights Evaporate
10.19.06

Two games

Simple, yet complex.

Free online courses from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT's OpenCourseWare is a "a free and open educational resource (OER) for educators, students, and self-learners around the world."

Check out the FAQ for any questions you may have.

Thinking our way outside the box

I keep finding great articles in the latest Edutopia. Here's two for you.

The New Face of Learning

Toss the Traditional Textbook

Reading Rockets - Watch online

Reading Rockets promises a heck of a lot. I can't wait to sample some of the online video offerings when I'm at school.

Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project offering information and resources on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help. The Reading Rockets project is comprised of PBS television programs, available on videotape and DVD; online services, including the web sites ReadingRockets.org and ColorinColorado.org; and professional development opportunities. Reading Rockets is an educational initiative of WETA, the flagship public television and radio station in the nation's capital, and is funded by a major grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.

Reading Rockets aims to inform and inspire parents, teachers, childcare providers, administrators, and others who touch the life of a child by providing accurate, accessible information on how to teach kids to read and help those who struggle. The project is guided by an advisory panel made up of leading researchers and experts in the field of reading. We produce and distribute research-based PBS television programs, online services, and professional development opportunities, which are available at no cost.

The site's home page is here.

Doppelganger?

Did you know that Teachers' Lounge has an evil twin?

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Thanks to Mike Cook for the great write-up!

Thinking of setting up a classroom blog?

Writing is fundamentally about PURPOSE and AUDIENCE. That is why writing for a prompt students may not care about, for a stranger they will never interact with, to create a product they cannot keep and will be destroyed after it is graded, is a RIDICULOUS model around which many teachers build their writing programs today. (I am talking here, of course, about the event we call “standardized writing assessment” in the great state of Texas.) Of course students need to learn how to write to a prompt. But writing is about so much more than doing something for a test. It is about writing with a PURPOSE for an authentic AUDIENCE that cares enough to not only read, but write back thoughtfully and constructively.

Setting up a classroom blog

Google alternatives for students

Google may not be the best choice when it comes to schoolwork.

Try these...

Ask.com

Answers.com

"I believe in failure."

Weaving my way to parts unknown.

Thread #1...

I've had the pleasure of speaking with (and occasionally verbally wrestling with) Jon Carroll, columnist for the San Francisco Gate, on The Well. So my ears perked up last week when I heard Jon's NPR essay, Failure Is a Good Thing.

My username on The Well is Topsy-Turvy. I believe up is down and in is out. I, too, believe in failure.

(Aside - I also love the movie of the same name... if you are a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, check out Topsy-Turvy.)

Thread #2...

From Take a Chance... Let them dance -

I heard a great story recently about a six-year-old girl in a drawing lesson. The teacher said this little girl hardly ever paid attention in class, but during this lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated. She asked the girl, "What are you drawing?" And the girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." The teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." The girl said, "They will in a minute."

What all children have in common is that they will take a chance. They're not frightened of being wrong. I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. But if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. By the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong.

(Article continues below, just in case the above link to original gets sucked down a black hole.)