Thinking About Education

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. ~Socrates

“Learning is the only thing for you.” ~T. H. White, The Once and Future King

  “It is one of our greatest experiences, as advanced educators, to know the motivational content of our subjects, and to deliberately inspire our students with the love of content that they would have been unlikely ever to have known without our teaching. It is the special opportunity for grammar teachers to show students why grammar is beautiful and fun, and it is the special privilege of the calculus teacher to show students.. Read More

First Do No Harm: The Damage of Low Expectations

I had a student once, let’s call her Leah.  She was a transfer during the first few weeks of school. We were alerted that she had some “problems.” I always begin the year with a study of word stems, and expect students to learn certain common roots, prefixes, and suffixes because then they have a base for understanding thousands of words. They memorize 10 or 15 at a time—a list like this one:.. Read More

“Texts” vs. “Books”

One of the interesting things you notice if you’ve been in education a long time is how the language we use shows how we have shifted our thinking. I couldn’t help noticing a few years back when I was having a discussion with colleagues about literature that I was the only one referring to “books” instead of “texts.”  There was something definitely too clinical to me about calling a book a “text.” “Text” reminded.. Read More

“We Murder to Dissect”

  Rest of the world take note: The language ARTS are dead Each year they are valued less and less They want us to teach social studies instead   It doesn’t matter that literature is life Or that it teaches character or enriches our souls Nonfiction is the curricula rife Twenty-first century automata the goal   They will keep the reading and writing But excise the content of art The skills are all.. Read More

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