The Computer Delusion
May 19, 2008 – 6:14 amJuly 1997 The Atlantic [See link for full article which contains embedded links] There is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve teaching and learning, yet school districts are cutting programs -- music, art, physical education -- that enrich children's lives to make room for this dubious nostrum, and the Clinton Administration has embraced the goal of "computers in every classroom" with credulous and costly enthusiasm Dangerous Policies IN 1922 Thomas Edison predicted that "the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and ... in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks." Twenty-three years later, in 1945, William Levenson, the director of the Cleveland public schools' radio station, claimed that "the time may come when a portable radio receiver will be as common in the classroom as is the blackboard." Forty years after that the noted psychologist B. F. Skinner, referring to ...
Harding Family Sends 11 year-old Homeschooler to College
May 18, 2008 – 7:23 amI want to meet this family who lives in the same city where our state school board meets! Healthy Family Harding Family Website CNN Video
Marva Collins
May 17, 2008 – 7:18 pmComment: In early fall of 2007, a friend invited me to visit an elementary school in nearby Panama City, Florida, to hear Marva Collins. After teaching "the worst class in the school" for three hours that morning, Mrs. Collins met with the faculty and guests to talk about education. Her comments in the 5th article reminded me of what she said that day, and I encourage you to read it, as well as her other articles. A native of my home state of Alabama, Marva Collins is a very wise and delightful woman and an excellent teacher. I highly recommend her website. Also don't miss reading her biography. - BP What Else Do We Teach the Children?
Psychiatric Help 5¢
May 16, 2008 – 6:21 pmMay 16, 2008 Will Fitzhugh Ed News In Peanuts, when we see Lucy offering Psychiatric Help for a nickel, we know it is a joke: ("The Psychiatrist is IN"), but when English teachers in the schools insist that students write about the most intimate details of their private lives for school assignments, that is not a joke, it is an unwarranted intrusion. There are a couple of major problems with the "personal writing" that has taken over so many of the writing assignments for the English classes in our schools. First, the teachers are asking students to share information about their personal lives that is none of the teachers' business. The vast majority of English teachers are not qualified as psychologists, much less as psychiatrists, and they should not pretend that they are. Second, the time spent by students writing assignments for their teachers in their personal diaries is subtracted from time they need to ...