I was subbing a class today and some kids started playing around and had the discussion above. I grabbed my camera and recorded it. For all of it’s humor (and Joe’s pretty funny), I’d also argue Joe raises some important points.
More later.
Month: March 2009
Re-Kindling Our Teaching of Reading
Amazon’s Kindle is on the scene in its latest iteration, and I might like it.
Citizen Zac thinks he likes it.
Mr. Chase thinks he might like it too. (How Jungian, right?)
Here’s what I’m thinking:
- I want a class set to try with kids.
- Could this be how textbooks stay valid?
- How about a site license on these books or drastically reduced rates for bulk downloads?
- When are we going to start changing how we teach reading – not “E-Literacies,” but actual reading – to reflect the changing shape of the book?
- Think what this could mean for an impoverished district or school.
- Reading lists just got more malleable.
If not the Kindle, something like it should be the future of how we play school. It might burn to read that, and believe me, it burns a bit to type it. This doesn’t change the reality of things. Over Presidents’ Day, I was discussing the teaching of handwriting with a middle school teacher who was lamenting some of her students’ ability to put their words on a line.
More later.
Progress? All right, I’m curious.
You may remember I had some choice words for the School District of Philadelphia’s Induction program (see here and here).
What I didn’t write about was my trip to the Office of Instruction and Leadership Support last quarter to voice my concerns over the entire process and offer up some possible solutions.
Evidently, I violated some protocol by stopping by unannounced and asking for some time. Once we moved past the idea that I was there because I had questions about the program and, instead, there because I had some ideas (this took several attempts on my part), many notes were taken. In the end, I was told the district would be forming a task force or committee or council or something to examine the program and make it work for the teachers and not against them.
That was months ago.
Friday, I got an e-mail with the following:
[T]he Office of Instruction and Leadership Support invites you to join our District’s Induction Council [turns out it was a council]. It is our intent to create a dynamic, professional and productive Induction Council who is committed to providing new teachers with the highest level of support.
We’ve three 2-hour meetings scheduled. That should be plenty of time to reshape the way the entire district welcomes new teacher into its ranks, right?
I’m actually excited about this.
More later.