Posts

Showing posts from 2020

Civilization: the building of a school ecology

Let's conduct an experiment. A thought experiment.  You're going to be on your own in the wild for the foreseeable future.  What is the one skill that you would like to have mastered in order to help you survive?  It can be assumed that you have very modest other skills, even if you don't have much time for their application. When I pose this question to students, most answer either hunting or fishing, maybe a few suggest gathering, with the common purpose being the acquisition of immediate calories. Then we imagine that a second person is going to join you.  What skill would you like them to have? Again, most think food but shift to long-term production: a farmer. We continue, with skills for the next memebers of our budding society being homebuilder (carpenter), doctor, tailor, tool maker, shepherd, and then quickly gettting into either redundancy of food production or perhaps variety or specificity.  Play this game with yourself, your students, your family, a...

Let's Redirect Teachers' Zeal for Science To Our Pedagogy

**Author's note: This is an opinion piece. I invite discussion, questions, counter-examples, etc.  I can think of no better way to support collegial academia than to invite your differing or extended thoughts!** "We are all hypocrites, but not all hypocrites are the same. Some are complacent, curmudgeon, and constant. Others are teachable, humble, and repentant. I hope I'm the latter type." --Dave Davidson Teachers, I'm worried about our image and integrity; I'm worried about our students.  I'm worried that too many of us have forgottten what it means to believe in #science regarding our classroom pedagogy while students and our public image are paying the price. In short, I think we need to collectively be more zealous about expecting ourselves and our colleagues to use thoroughly researched based pedagogy in the classroom and maybe a little less zealous in throwing around the #science hashtag regarding ever-changing COVID research and recommendation...