Human societies are so prosperous mostly because of how altruistic we are. Unlike other animals, people cooperate even with complete strangers.
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Here’s a list of issues in education that are reported on repeatedly—issues where the solution makes common sense, or have been proven through many studies.
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My colleagues and I at the University of British Columbia studied over 110,000 public school students. We learned that students involved in extended music engagement (between grades 8 - 12) do one full year better academically than non-music peers, particularly when engaged in instrumental music sustained over years of schooling.
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If remote schooling is working for you and your child, then, by all means, keep going. But if you find the expectation to facilitate schooling at home with your child problematic, you have the right to opt-out and opt-in to something better.
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With schools closed due to COVID-19, communities are scrambling to provide students with meals and supplies and meet other needs. For education researcher Samantha Keppler, these closures offer a chance to reflect on the many services besides teaching children English, math and other core subjects that schools provide.
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After all these years of corporations throwing apps at us and well-meaning administrators providing us with devices and philanthrocapitalists pumping billions of dollars into ed tech first academic schemes, we can all see now that the emperor has no clothes.
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Maybe they don’t notice, or didn’t see coming, how they promoted charters at the expense of public schools. Perhaps they didn’t mean to criticize the teaching profession by meddling with their teacher effectiveness initiative, and supporting Teach for America types. Didn’t they realize the hubbub they’d create wanting to collect massive amounts of data on children?
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“A Practical Guide to Digital Research: Getting the Facts and Rejecting the Lies” is enriched by the stories of real life research successes that Schneider has had over the years and that have kept those of us who have had the fortune to read her regularly informed and entertained.
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As never before, we are required to think about the nature of solitude, the quality of our relationships, whether we enjoy social contact, and what kinds. We must consider what belonging and community means to us.
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Trump’s incessant (pathological) lying has invigorated the fact-checking business exponentially, but the free market has also allowed a partisan fact-checking backlash that uses the label of “fact check” to legitimize fake news and outright lies.
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With most U.S. schools closed for the rest of the school year due to the COVID-19 outbreak – and uncertainty surrounding the decision to reopen them in the fall – parents may be tempted to try out home-schooling.
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While there are terrible inconveniences to families in these trying times, children’s brains are not becoming addled by a few months of freedom from being “taught.” If kids read a bit, count birds or estimate the heights of blossoming trees outside their windows, they might learn more than they would in school.
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Mercedes Schneider, Ph.D., is an author, blogger, classroom teacher and researcher. Garn Press just published her fourth book, “A Practical Guide to Digital Research”. Mercedes blogs at Deutsch29 She and I conducted the e-interview below as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc far and near in late March.
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It’s okay if a few children die to start up the economy. That is literally the opinion being offered by media influencers and policymakers as Coronavirus social distancing efforts continue passed the 30-day mark.
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A Practical Guide to Digital Research is available now, and you should get a copy or yourself, and a copy for the other activist in your life. The information is practical and useful and, in this day and age, indispensable. I recommend that you buy this book.
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Teachers are having a rough time. Many in this country don’t like teachers and blame them for all the problems in the world. Teachers like to see students return to visit, or hear from them so they can see how they turned out. Help turn it around. Support your public school teachers.
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“First Do No Harm: Progressive Education in a Time of Existential Risk” develops a comprehensive argument for the importance of progressive education in light of the world’s increasingly severe challenges. Steve Nelson spells out a vision of real education reform that we just might be ready for now.
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If I had one bit of advice to anyone seeking a school for a child it would be, “Find a school where there is much singing, listening to and playing of music all day long, in and out of the classroom.”
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