Carnival of Education!

Carnival of Education

Howdy folks, hope your week so far has gone well. Without further ado, I direct you to the midway, where all of the exhibits reside. There are quite a few out there, and I had a great time reading all of 'em.

Restrictions on what you can and can't read? Threatening the livelihood of an individual and perhaps their family? Single-handedly voting as a bloc and changing the election cycle? Sound like life in a dictatorship in the axis of evil? Think again, that's life in Yucaipa-Calimesa as a teacher. Check out their blog, and their union website has a ULP that was filed with PERP and is well worth reading. I've got to hand it to them, they're patient-- over 565 days without a contract.

NYC Educator's post on why bad teachers deserve union protection tugs at the heartstrings. Well, at least my heartstrings.

That's followed up by ChemJerk's conclusions on the effects of bad teachers on schools.

Ryan imagines that his state's school funding issues are fixed and now he's getting an additional $1 million at his elementary school and he spends it. Kind of reminds me of Brewster's Millions from waaay back, you know? Except in this case, he's doing it for the kids instead of more money.

I can adequately do three of the five things listed over at Three Standard Deviations to the Left. How many can you do?

Mamacita has a great blog post that all comes together at the end over at Scheiss Weekly. Full of wisdom, and metaphors and a great one liner at the end...

Coach Brown has a post about teaching economics with some great resources that makes me wish I was teaching the class (or taking it).

Don't you love it when administrators don't give you any support? Mr. Chips tells the tale so many of us are familiar with.

The Education Wonks highlights the ongoing (eternal) debate of homework or no homework...and the school he highlights in SF doesn't do homework after school. So I guess it's a "work to the rule school".

Ms. Cornelius comes at us with a great post about a teacher's body language and how it totally sets the tone in the classroom. I completely agree...make sure to read her caveat, as this activity could completely blow up in your face if you don't.

I wish I had Miss Profe as my Spanish teacher in high school. Her deep thoughts in this post make me want to get to school a little early tomorrow morning.

TeacherInsight is designed to weed out the "substandard" teachers...based on a multiple choice test. Mister Teacher dreams up a few questions and what they might look like. I seriously laughed out loud on this one, folks.

Mrs. Bluebird's just found out that discipline referrals in her school have gone up by 85% this school year alone. She asks the question "Are we creating monsters?"

The Virgin Mary on a cafeteria tray? Who owns it? Can we display it? What about separation of church and state?

Need to find a good online graphing program? Techie Mike Curtin bares all...or maybe it's graphs all.

Higher ed folks: are your freshman college students narcissistic? Kneon Transitt seems to think so.

Henry over at Why Homeschool asks the question "What good are teachers' unions in public education?" Note to self: hold tongue.

Terrell shows off some pictures of his fabulous elementary school campus (I am dead serious about it) and shares his latest project.

Alexander Russo has pronounced local control over education dead.

What would you do (and how would you respond) if your first grader said their nipple was broken? Enter the world of the Median Sib.

The Science Goddess says we all need badges for our teaching accomplishments, like those in the science scouts. I am first in line to be awarded the "Just Push Play" badge.

Hey elementary school teachers!! You know those uh, "100 day" projects you give your students and their parents? Dad has a few comments about 'em.

Muse laments about the "dumbing down" of tests and curriculum.

Dana doesn't think that our curriculum are being dumbed down so much as the kids are, uh, getting...uh, less motivated than their predecessors.

Right on the Left Coast gives his take on a new math discovery.

Right Wing Prof posits that the majority of the things wrong with education today are not pedagogical.

Consider the case and plight of Adam, a young man who cares very much about his education but is met by indifference perpetuated by the system, says Joanne Jacobs.

Science fair participation is down in Florida, says this blog. Hey, don't look at me, my project went all the way to regional and I got a superior but never made state. I'm going to find that judge some day....

Trivium Pursuit writes a serious(not) thank-you letter to a homeschooling family.

Ian over at the Agonist recounts how the New Orleans charter experiment will be a success, at the expense of the public schools and those students not cherry-picked.

'Allo guvnah, this bloke across the pond posts in his cracking blog about what it's like to teach. Yes, the colour of the blog is grey.

Mr. Meyer exposes the flaws in Freedom Writers. He even had time to start thinking about a freedom writers' drinking game. It inspired an administrator (yes, they're allowed to blog, too) to post about Meyer's post.

Steph over at Life Without School discusses her decision to homeschool in this post.

Direct Instruction is bemoaned by teachers as, uh, turning us into robots. This piece highlights a book that actually says DI is worthwhile and valuable!

Another blogger joins their voice into the din making noise about the contradictory reports put forth with the release of the recent NAEP scores.

What's more important to your adult career-- the college you go to or what you do at the college you go to? Barry tackles this pithy question.

Chanman reminds us that for high stakes tests, sometimes you've gotta get a higher power involved. No, that's not the superintendent or the executive director.

The Tempered Radical reminds us that there are liars, damn liars and statistics. Or something like that.

I know what open source software is. I don't think I use it, but if that interests you check out Greg's blog post.

8 Baltimore schools are being restructured, hopefully that is being done thoughtfully; if not the end result will be like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Well, it was bound to happen. Citing the "well known liberal bias of Webster's dictionary" (I am not making that up) you are now witness the unveiling of Conservipedia, yin to the yang of Wikipedia.

That's it folks!!! Don't worry, there's more next week, and the Science Goddess is going to be hosting it. So feel free to email her at her blog, "What It's Like on the Inside" the_science_goddess[at]yahoo[dot]com by 6 p.m. PT (9 PT Eastern), March 6, 2007. Or you can always use this wonderful submission form.