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Here Are A Few Things You Absolutely Should Not Miss From The Past Week (Or So) in Edu-Bloggery!

Read them, dammit. It’s for your own good. 

Walking in Circles – Rob Miller on A View From The Edge. Miller is the master of the simple analogy that sucks you in, then spins you around before you realize you’ve been profoundulated. 

As humans, we have a tendency to travel in circles in quite a few areas, in particular education and education reform. 

If you asked education reformers if the emphasis on test-based accountability in schools over the past 20 years has moved us forward, they would likely respond, “Of course, we have made significant progress,” followed by the caveat that “but, we still have work to do.” 

The reality is we have spent the last 20 years in education walking in a circle. In fact, I could also make a strong argument that we have moved backwards.

Follow @edgeblogger on the Tweeting and spend less time going in circles.  #oklaed 

Black Eyes and Dark Ages – Amanda Wilson on Running Through Elementary. Wilson is always passionate about her kids and her profession, but she’s usually fairly… well, balanced compared to the rest of us. 

That is, until the Tulsa World and the OCPA broke into her happy place and harshed on all her mellow.

Well, now that the cat is out of the bag, I guess we’ll just have to talk about all the cuts they’ve made and tax breaks they’ve given out, but are just stumped as to how to pay for education and other state necessities. Can someone please explain to them just how this works? That in order to pay for things, money has to be coming in?

What are they doing over there at the Capitol? Are they running around looking for a leprechaun and his pot of gold? I just don’t get it. Clearly, they don’t either. But how dare we point out how inadequate they are at balancing budgets!

In Wilson’s defense, the OCPA does have a gift for playing that sweet, innocent, we-were-just-trying-to-help-when-we-pillaged-your-village-and-took-your-virgins angle. Think Kyle Loveless, but with unlimited funding and better social media.

Follow @runningthruelem on the Tweeting and gelp Wilson get back to her happy place. That way it’s all the more fun when something sets her off again.  #oklaed

How Do Our Own Biases Affect our Media Literacy? / My Bias is Better Than Your Bias – Julie Smith and Art La Flamme on HeyJulieSmith.com. Julie Smith is a media literacy guru who’s fairly new to me. Based on perusing her site, she’s more about the practical and the pondering than stirring up artificial panic or cheesy PSAs about stranger-danger cyber-style. La Flamme is a guest-blogger for Smith, although he has a blog of his own which seems to be about… other things?

Smith wrote the first piece featured this week and La Flamme the second. They flow together seemlessly, and their timing couldn’t be better. I’ve essentially been trying to write these posts or something very much like them as #OKElections16 nears, but I lack the expertise and comfort with the subject matter that they both clearly possess. 

By and far, one of the biggest stumbling blocks that we all wrestle with – but lose sight of – is the great pitfall that we call the confirmation trap. We are always looking for information that supports or even just confirms what we think is true, and we specifically make no effort to try to find evidence that disproves what we think is true. Hard work is only hard if we do it; otherwise, it’s totally easy.

I’m certain YOU never do any of the things they detail, but you might want to send this to everyone you know who DOES. New evidence shows that’s just what the Koch Brothers and secret pal Hillary DON’T want you to do!

Follow @julnilsmith and @artlaflamme on the Tweeting before Trump shuts down the internet to gain sexual favors from ‘Val’ Putin – FBI documents PROVE IT’S TRUE!

Universal Pre-K, Open Enrollment, Millennial Parents, and City Living / The New Reformers: City-Loving Millennials Who Want Quality Schools Not Tied to Their ZIP Code – Conor P. Williams on NewAmerica.org and The74Million.org.

Williams is one of those guys who seems genuinely likeable, but still manages to piss off an interesting variety of folks on edu-twitter. You can see why I’m so drawn to him.

In these closely related pieces, he looks at school choice systems and well-intentioned millenials vs. the irresistable gravity of using privilege as, well… privilege. 

The future of education reform will involve thinking hard about whether the reform-y policies that these new urban residents favor are still working in the service of equity. That is, while these new urban parents are open to these sorts of reforms, they’re also going to be interested in finding ways to massage these systems into protecting their privilege.

This is not abstract. As each lottery season passes, I hear frustrated white parents grumble on the playground that all this open enrollment of schools is unfair, and that there oughta be a law to force our area’s high-performing charter schools to enroll the (increasingly wealthy, privileged) neighborhood children.

In this sense, millennials are no different from any other generation of parents: They might like the idea of justice in theory, but when it comes to their own children, they quickly revert to thinly veiled justifications for protecting their own privileges.

Follow @conorpwilliams on the Tweeting and prepare to have any number of reactions to his comments. You’ll be surprised how many of them will be rather positive.

OK: Teach Like A Robot – Peter Greene, Curmudgucation. How DID I miss this in the news this past week? Damn you, #OKElections16 and #DebateNight! 

I forget that just because something has been shown to be a horrible idea doesn’t mean it goes away – only that it costs more when we do it anyway. On a lighter note, I fell in edu-love with @1amyberard because she wasn’t Tom Brady, so there’s the “Dwarves can work with Erudites to defeat Voldemort” effect as a kind of silver lining, I guess…

See, in normal coaching, a principal watches a teacher and then it is hours, or even days, before the teacher gets the feedback. But in real time coaching, the coach directs the teacher through an earpiece, presumably because the technology to simply control her body from a distance does not yet exist…

The real time nature of the coaching is actually a bug, not a feature. If I’m coaching another teacher, after I’ve watched the lesson, I’ll need at least a few minutes to reflect. In the real time moment, I’m pretty much limited to the instant thought of What I Would Do, or, if I’ve been trained in a particular method, the One Correct Response to that situation. Either response devalues and dismisses that teacher’s own teaching voice.

It’s just silly to say that there is One Correct Way to teach a particular lesson, irregardless of the teacher or the class involved. It makes no more sense than saying there is One Correct Way to be a spouse, irregardless of who is your partner.

Follow @palan57 on the Tweeting or you risk seriously annoying at least some of the voices already in your head. 

That’s it this week, my beloved #11FF…

You are now the most informed, thoughtful, brazen educators in the land. Might as well walk with a little extra strut this weekend and let it shine. Partin’ lips, shakin’ hips and flippin’ your hair… 

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All the words are gonna bleed from me, and I will think no more…

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OK, that’s probably a tad melodramatic for my taste most days – but I do really like this particular cover. You know I’m a sucker for hopeless defiance – flinging our little flashlights towards the black holes screaming obscenities somehow rooted in love. 

*sigh*

The thing is, if enough people bring flashlights…

With that in mind, here are a few things you simply MUST NOT MISS from the world of edu-bloggery this past week (or so). Bask in them, learn from them, argue with them if you must – but bring your flashlight to the party.

We’ll have a grand ol’ time for a few glorious moments before being crushed by the weight of the darkness.

Self-Grading / Formative Assessments – Anthony Purcell, Random Teacher Thoughts. Purcell resumes his random postery this school year with some relatively straightforward but crazy-important thoughts on grading and assessments. Is it just me, or is it getting all reflective up in here?

It’s so easy in edu-bloggery or in any pedagogi-ful competition (and let’s be honest – that’s what many “trainings” quickly become) to become consumed with the fanciest ideas or the most pretentious goals. Often what’s most needed and far better for kids is to remind ourselves of simple things we might already know, but which slip away in the craziness of the actual school year and the trappings of academia. 

I’m glad he’s back. Follow @MrP_Tchr on the Twitterings and be glad with me.  #oklaed 

Today Was A Good Day – Speaking of people we’re glad to see back in the blogosphere, Kas Nelson of A Principal’s Pace is apparently alive and well.

As the title of her blog suggests, Nelson is one of them there “administrators” who we keep hearing make way too much money and there’s like 800,000 of them in every district and we’d all be better off if we did away with everyone other than classroom teachers because nothing needs to be done in school other than close the door and inspire the masses.

None of which she complains about or addresses here. That’s just me carrying on. 

Today, I was present. Today, there were challenges. Today, I learned something about a student… Today, I shared my love of reading with kids. Today, I felt stress, at times… Today, I remained positive, and let my joy come through on my face and in my actions. Today was a good day.

As I said, it’s not about the biggest words or the loftiest classroom philosophy. Remember to turn on your flashlight.

Flash @kasnelson on the Twittering and bask in her light as well. That’s how edu-Twitter works, people.  #oklaed  

Compulsory Education is Evil – Crispin Sartwell on Splice Today. Oh, calm down. No, he’s not kidding. Yes, I really liked this piece. No, I don’t exactly agree with him. 

But one of the best indicators of how comfortable we are with our own proclaimed values and beliefs is how quickly we spazz out when someone disagrees with them. If this brief argument makes you twitch and drool, perhaps it suggests that on some level you find it… persuasive? Difficult to consider? Almost kinda sexy, but with hairy legs?

As to the egalitarian justifications, elementary and some secondary education has been compulsory in all states of the union for 100 years. Has the effect actually been egalitarian? I think rather the reverse, and the “dysfunctions” of schools in poor areas have been criticized and reformed in every generation, persisting or expanding throughout… How many waves of reform will it take before we declare the strategy to be a failure?

You may not like his conclusions, but you gotta love anything that hurts that much to read. You don’t want to read the rest? Whatsa matter? Chiiiickennnn?  *makeschickennoises*

Stalk @CrispinSartwell on the Twittering and see what else he says that horrifies you into brief flashes of clarity. 

Fear of a Black Educator, Part 1 / Fear of a Black Educator, Part 2 – Jose Vilson, on TheJoseVilson.com. I’m not even sure how to introduce these.

I don’t always understand Vilson. I’m not sure I can – our worlds are simply too different and our experiences so far removed. I’m also pretty sure he’s smarter than me, which I like – but which means he sometimes loses me without even meaning to. But this pair hit me, rather hard.

You’re asked to control kids who look like you, but don’t get too good at it because you’ll look like you have more power than the person in charge does. You’re asked to tell kids they shouldn’t feel anger and hurt over racist incidents that happened to them in plain sight. Instead, you’re asked to put them in an auditorium and tell them they misremembered it all, and every agent of the state works in their best interest. You’re asked to stick to the script, sometimes figuratively because the test scores are low and your staff needs work, or literally because your district lead thought it best to buy a curriculum-in-a-box from a company that obviously didn’t consult many current teachers…

You looked into dozens of children’s eyes today and told them that they’re allowed to dream because one of your heroes said so. This hero met a similar fate to the victims in the videos you’ve been watching.

Damn.

Vilson doesn’t claim to represent every Teacher of Color or offer solutions to every challenge faced by every student. Part of what I most appreciate about him is his determination to stay honest, and tell only his stories and those of others he’s qualified to tell. Even as he became something of an #educolor celebrity, his voice remains genuine and a bit raw. In case there’s any doubt, I mean that in the best possible way.

Follow @TheJLV on the Twittering. I can’t promise it will always be fun, but I can guarantee that you’ll be stretched – maybe even inspired. 

Hermione Granger: More Than a Sidekick – Sarah Gailey on TOR.com. TOR isn’t exactly an edu-blog and Gailey isn’t technically an educator. But…

OMG how in love am I with this post? 

Does anyone in the Harry Potter universe stand in more direct opposition to Voldemort than Hermione Granger does? …

She’s a muggle-born witch who arrives at Hogwarts prepared to dominate magic. She’s enormously ambitious, but consistently seeks to elevate others when she could easily let them fail. She walks beside Harry even when doing so means putting up with relentless scorn from the people who waver between hating him and worshiping him…

She stands up against a centuries-long institution of interspecies slavery, even when doing so means that everyone she cares about will laugh at her… She chooses her causes over her ambitions every time, and she swallows the consequences because they’re worth it to her.

This piece made me glow and smile and tremble a bit and literally tear up and I want to have its babies. 

If you think it doesn’t have anything to do with education, then you’re missing something pretty important in the mix. But even without that, if you’ve ever loved me, or yourself, or anyone, or pizza, read this and send it to anyone remotedly interested in – well, anything. 

As of today, I’m following @gaileyfrey on the Twittering and hoping she doesn’t find my sudden adoration alarmingly creepy. 

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted much about #OKElections16 this week, or shared anything along those lines in this weekly recap. I’m not done with the election, however much I wish I were. There’s more coming soon. In the meantime, we’ll close this week with a video that I strongly suspect was made with Oklahoma politics in mind. I can’t prove this, of course, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. 

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I feel so extraordinary. Something’s got a hold on me. I get this feeling I’m in motion – A sudden sense of liberty… 

Feel extraordinary, my darlings. You are in all kinds of motion. Fling those flashlights and curse that darkness – who cares what comes next? The rest is madness. 

Sometimes we need a little help to cut through the clutter and decipher the nonsense.

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But fret not, my #11FF – I’m here for you. 

*tenderembrace*

I know, I know… me too. But we must press forward. We’re sometimes all they have. Besides, I know what will help you feel better, re-energize, sharpen that ol’ focus…

Here are a few things you simply MUST NOT MISS from the world of edu-bloggery this past week!

On Ditch Diggers & Dreamers – Rick Cobb, OKEducationTruths. Cobb posts about Labor Day, but being him, the post is about so much more than that – and… videos!

Working and dreaming are not mutually exclusive endeavors. Our nation was not built by those who are content with the world they saw around them. Innovation has never been left to the conformists. We work so we can play. And so we can dream. But first, we work.

This one, I confess, left me a tad misty-eyed. No joke. Follow @okeducation on Twitter or YOU’RE DOING EVERYTHING WRONG. #oklaed 

Can Evidence Improve America’s Schools? – Peter Greene, Curmudgucation. Greene is all about using research to improve his teaching. He just doesn’t buy most of what’s being sold as “research.” 

When some guy shows up to say, “I’ve never done your job, and I’ve never watched you do your job, and I don’t know your kids, or your school or your community or you, but I would like to tell you how you should totally change what you do based on one flawed piece of research with ten bits of data, and by the way, I’m hoping to make a ton of money by selling this to you–” Well, that’s just not a pitch I’m buying.

I’m an education researcher every day of my professional life.

Research @palan57 on Twitter or YOU’LL CONTINUE TO WANDER THROUGH THE DARK ALONE. 

Public Schools Aren’t Businesses. Don’t Believe Me? Try Running a Business as a Public School. – Stu Egan, Caffeinated Rage. Egan is new to me, but I love the blog title already – not to mention his mildly quirky sense of frothing indignation. 

 I invite you to try and see if you could run a business like a public school. Maybe the differences between a public service and private enterprise might become more apparent because you’re not even comparing apples to oranges. You’re comparing apples to rocks.

So he seems nice. 

Follow @ragecaffeinated on Twitter and froth along. I think I’m a fan. 

Dear Educator Mom – Mrs. Megan Morgan, on the appropriately named MrsMeganMorgan.

Moms. To Do. Teachers. To Do. Guilt. To Don’t. 

Just like state standards, there is too much to accomplish.  Pick your hills to die on (We don’t have to have the same ones)… Once these things are accomplished, then everything else is gravy.

Own your hills and don’t try to match others. I’ve accepted that my house is even close to magazine worthy and I have no guilt about it.

Follow @MrsMeganMorgan on Twitter or HAPPINESS WILL NEVER BE YOURS.

How to Create Empowered Readers – A Beginning / So Much Depends On The Word “Yet”… – Pernille Ripp, PernilleSRipp.com. A double shot of Ripp, with three extra squirts of passion. 

I don’t do much in the way of ‘caring nurturing inspiring’ posts, but Ripp brings a validity to that flavor of passion like only a handful of others can. 

How many of our students have not experienced what is means to complete a series that one has become so invested in that it feels like the loss of a family member once the last page has been read?  How many years has it been for some, if at all, since they truly loved a book?  While we cannot change the past, we do have control over the now, over what happens in our classrooms. 

…

Driving home today, I kept thinking about how far we still have to go. How much these brand new kids don’t know. How they don’t get me or us. How hard it is to get them started with something… How a new year is hard and you end up questioning every single thing you do because surely you must be doing something wrong because didn’t this go much better the year before?

Follow @PernilleRipp on Twitter or CLEARLY YOU HATE BOTH CHILDREN AND HAPPINESS. 

Finally, Edu-Bloggery Classic – Posts Worth Revisiting (or Visiting, if you Missed Them the First Time)…

The Creature Speaks: Why I Still Teach Frankenstein (10/18/15) / Needing A Connection (3/3/16) – Jennifer Williams, JennWillTeach. A pair from Williams – one about the tragedy of failed human connections, and one about the power of true communication.

Not quite two sides of the same coin, but certainly two chapters in the same Truth Crockpot Cookbook.

Every chance I get, I will continue teaching Frankenstein because it can still speak to a modern audience. With public shaming, bullying, and discrimination seemingly on the rise, our society needs to listen to the Creature. He represents every person society pushes to the fringes; he represents every child seen as not good enough by society; he represents every human made to feel ugly and unlovable.

…

The world is chaotic, but words, especially written words, can bring order to that chaos. An essay or novel or tweet is NOT creating something from nothing; they are attempts to bring structure and infuse meaning into the disorder. 

I want my students to learn the rules of format and Standard English so they can more effectively communicate with others. Then, I want them to learn how and when to break those rules. 

Break a few rules with @JennWillTech on Twitter or WHY IS AMERICA EVEN AMERICA?  #oklaed 

Stay strong, my beloveds.

You are more than you think and better than you know. As for me, sometimes I feel like the Tiger, but more often… the Lady. In terms of this song, I mean.

Not for the normal reasons you might think.

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What A Saturday Morning. Here’s hoping we can have similar impact in social and political circles.

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Stuff You Simply SHOULD NOT Miss in Edu-Bloggery This Past Week:

Teacher Self-Care For The New School Year (A Guide) – Dan Tricarico, aka The Zen Teacher, gives us what he gives best. Reasonable perspective, calm words, and unvarnished honesty.

This post is mostly a 9-minute video of Dan getting all kinda Zen Real on the Interwebs, and it’s 9 minutes well-spent. He’ll inrease your brainwaves while lowering your blood pressure – and I, for one, could use both of those adjustments. 

Follow @TheZenTeacher on the Twitters, and breathe. There’s nothing creepy New Age about breathing, people. 

Besides, you’re going to need to breathe if you’re paying any attention at all to politics these days…

Gently Seething – Amanda Smith, on Running Through Elementary, is a tiny bit… troubled by not only the actions, but the attitudes and apparent mindsets of our state leadership.

So she’s expressing those frustrations – in a healthy, constitutionally protected way. On her blog. And she’s right. Tragically, completely right. 

And it would be wrong of me to laugh as I read them – not because I disagree, and certainly not in disparagement, but because her pithy pissiness, while genuine, is also rather amusing. 

I mean, I’m outraged as well – but she’s just so good at it. I… I… 

I kinda want her to be outraged more. Does that make me a bad person? Follow @runningthroughelem on the Twitters and express yourself back. #oklaed

Dear Oklahoma State Legislature – Meghan Loyd, on The Odyssey Online, does just what her title suggests and writes an open letter to our state leadership. 

For those of you outside Oklahoma, first – congratulations. Second, our state legislature has been… less than supportive about public education. They keep changing the rules repeatedly then complaining we’re not efficient enough while we constantly adjust to keep up. They do everything possible to eliminate sources of revenue, cut our funding more than any other state in the Union, then mock us when we protest and accuse us of constantly begging for more when will it ever be enough throwing money at a problem doesn’t solve everything you stupid teachers!

It’s really quite disheartening.

Loyd handles it better than most, and this brief post is both poignant and reasonable.

Follow @meghanloyd on the Twitters and be poignant and reasonable as well. #oklaed

To Give Yourself Up Completely – Peter Anderson, on Mr. Anderson Reads & Writes, has been an all-kinds-of-legit-serious, ELA-embracing, pedagogy-loving, children-are-the-future-ing blogmeister recently. 

He’s apparently taken a short breather, just long enough to do some soul-baring introspection and share it with us. “I’ve struggled to unhook my self-esteem from the predictably unpredictable rhythms of school life,” he says. 

Oh man, I totally get that. It’s just I haven’t even tried to unhook anything. 

Follow @MrAndersonELA on the Twitters and get real in some of the most challenging ways. Thing is, I always go forth either motivated or amused after reading what he has to say. 

Heck – sometimes both!

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FINALLY AND FOREMOST…

I hate to finish on a downer, but then again I’m not sure that’s what this is. 

The State We’re In (Oklahoma’s Fractured Narrative) – Barry Friedman, of The Tulsa Voice, just dropped his pen to explain what condition our condition is in.

It hurts so beautifully harsh and stings so painfully true – a poignant exercise in Okla-Reality S&M. Friedman’s not an edu-blogger so much as a news analyst / editorial writer, but this piece is too important to let little things like genre get in the way. Besides, the writing… oh, the writing.

I wouldn’t necessarily marry his writing, but I’d fling dollar bills at it repeatedly throughout the evening. It’s that good. I may share this one every week between now and the elections.

Follow @TheTulsaVoice on the Twitters and let them hurt you more. The way they do it, you’ll thank them for it. #oklaed

‘CAUSE YOUR HEAD’S SHAKING AND YOUR ARMS ARE SHAKING AND YOUR FEET ARE SHAKING ‘CAUSE THE EARTH IS SHAKING… 

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