102nd Carnival of Education..Woo-Hoo!

For the latest on teacher union strikes or negotiations, click here.

It is with great pleasure that I host my first ever Carnival of Education. I have been exhibited on the midway several times, but this is my first job "opening" for it.

Now for some words of wisdom from Dr. King.

"History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let's Carnival!

Nic recalls her students' recent and extremely colorful use of the infinitive future verbs in class. Apparently some students thought he would be stopping off at the local cantina after work.

How many times have you told your students not to copy on a paper or other assignment? Ms. SuperScience recounts holding the hand of her student teacher as the student teacher went through her first plagiaristic experience, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Incidents of students impersonating teachers online are rising, especially on Myspace. Brice recounts making a slanderous Myspace page a high school teacher he hated. He also remembers getting caught after doing it.

This piece at The Psychology of Education talks about the science of procrastination. I'd tell you more about it, but I haven't read it yet. I was planning to, honest. Heh.

Janet waxes philosophical on school uniforms. As she says "You can take the girl out of the low rise jeans, but you'll never stop the guy from lusting after that girl."

Robin, the homeschool teacher and mom has a handle on what a teachable moment is and how to use it.

Should a test grade stay etched in stone, for time immemorial? Is it important to record a student's mastery level at one point in time and keep it, unchanged by the learning they have engaged in since then? Or should you as a teacher constantly allow them the opportunity to take tests and replace old grades with new grades and improved conceptual understanding?

Ever have that one student who won't do anything without you mentioning their name for every class directive? Mister Teacher does.

Ms. Cornelius admits not everyone makes it through AP. "She had said repeatedly that she wanted to stay, but her actions screamed out, "I'm in over my head!"

NYC Educator realizes that all he needs is a few good administrators to and his DoE to back him up and he would be able to move mountains like this charter school.

Barack Obama may have formed an exploratory committee but the real news in politics is Bill Gates throwing his money (and foundation) into the ring in 2008 to make public education the topic of the election, says Alexander Russo. Apparently the mess in Iraq will have been solved by then.

If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound? If a substitute teacher gets accused of something they didn't do and there's no administrator there to back them up, what happens?

Joanne Jacobs blogs about something very important. I saw words like "percentile" "bell curve" and "standard deviations" and other stuff of the sort, so I know it's important. Maybe it's about math or something. I hate math.

Graycie waxes eloquently about Poseidon and the Odyssey, inspired by his freshman.

Happy first birthday to NCLBlog over at AFT! A number of key blogosphere types share their favorite posts over the past year from the blog. Kind of like a rockumentary for a blog.

Muse revels in a quiet thank you from a student.

Coach Brown lays out his 14 point plan for peace and healthier children.

D-Ed Reckoning is using big words too. Very similar to Joanne Jacobs' post, I think. I even saw the word "longitudinal". Yep. Big words.

Texas Ed says it right when she writes "All I can say is that 'acrimonious showdown for school board' doesn'tÂ’t inspire confidence."

Do you want to be a person billionaire? Sure, we all do.

This interesting debate between two wonkish types touches on the recent involvement of the Supreme Court when it comes to race-based admission/ assignment policies in public education.

How many of you good folks out there teach in portables? Mat says they're better than reg'lar buildings, 'cause "With a fixed building, the community is left funding a building that is obsolete when finished and then lays largely dormant as the neighborhood ages."

Mamacita says "A little homework is a good thing" but seems to have been burned alive on a forum. Here she defends herself.

Darren agrees with the right a of a teacher to make butt print paintings on his own time outside of the school, and says that teacher shouldn't have been fired for it.

Remember cheerleaders: make sure you say "Yea Team" for the girls as much as you do for the boys, or someone from the acronym patrol will be paying you a visit!!

History is Elementary laments the lack of frontline teachers on the recent WaPo education blogroll.

That's it, I've had a great time. Make sure you support your local union rep!

Next Week's Midway: The Carnival comes home to The Education Wonks. Thedeadline for submissions is: 9:00 PM (Eastern) 6:00 PM (Pacific) Tuesday,January 23. Submissions may be sent to: owlshome [at] earthlink [dot] net. Contributers may also use Blog Carnival's handy submission form: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_5.html