We must not fret if a story doesn’t get out on the main highway for a wonderful ride. Some stories just aren’t destined for greatness. Sometimes we just barely plug along, with no laughs at all, no sparkles, no cute moments. That’s fine. By delivering comprehensible messages we are doing our job. We trust that […]
This is from Craig in Los Angeles: Hey Ben, Today for the first time I was able to write “no ingles” on the board, in a very non-authoritarian way, and students willingly stood up to the challenge, and even got onto each other for speaking out of turn in English. Also for the first time,
I recommend that we read the second sentence of what Claire said below (in red) carefully. It is a reference to the idea put forth in some research that in education curriculum and instruction and assessment must mirror each other. It is something Claire told me last summer and I won’t ever forget it. Claire
I was just thinking how much better school would be for kids if they had even one class during their long days that allowed them to just relax and learn without effort, a place where they could feel good, and learn things like Chemistry and Math and History without really having to lift a finger.
Laura Avila has written: …in class [Tommy] shows up, looks at the board, at me, gives ideas, etc. etc. Still at the end of the year he cannot remember “he wants”even though he was present in body and mind all along. It would take him probably another entire year to remember “he wants”. Should I
I don’t know when grading first happened in schools but I suspect that it was connected in some way to ranking people who wanted to be there, or who in some way cared about the grade, to whom the grade made some kind of sense. In truth, I have neither the time nor the inclination
Darcy Soto has thrown down the glove on assessment by going full on 100% jGR. That is radical. To read the entire thread on this vital and emerging topic after a hiatus of about four years here, click on: https://benslavic.com/blog/jgr-how-much-weight-should-it-get-a-suggestion/comment-page-1/#comment-80544 In response to what Darcy is doing, Laura Avila expressed as true a sentiment, as
In exchanging emails with Jeff Easthon in Illinois, who totally gets the Invisibles, I was surprised to learn that he is staying with Matava story scripts this year as his main CI delivery option. He explained to me that for him the Invisibles, though they have power, get a little dicey when it is time
In a discussion initiated by Elena yesterday about the idea of breaking the ice with the kids, getting to know them as human beings first before trying to teach them anything, jen said: …I did this after trying to do this as a group and then realizing that the level of social unsafety in the
In their comments here yesterday, Nathaniel and Laura have cast a big searchlight on what might be the first “big topic” of our year together here on the PLC. The two questions Nathaniel poses at the end of his comment below are colossal. Where will they take us? Here’s Nathaniel’s comment: With a list, the list is the
There has been some discussion lately on assessment and I would like to highlight what Claire has written on her blog on this topic. It’s pretty much what I think exactly and I appreciate Claire’s elegant points on behalf of children. Of particular value is this great sentence: …rubrics capture responses to CI on paper, then celebrate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brandy-young-texas-teacher-no-homework-letter-note-facebook-viral_us_57b60aede4b03d5136871eb7?section=&
