Feb 19, 2008
Carnival of Education #159: Briefing the Next US President on 35 Issues
By: Alvaro Fernandez
Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President,
Thank you for stopping during recess for a quick study sessi
on. 35 educators have collaborated to present this Carnival of Education as a useful lesson plan for you and your education policy team on what our real concerns and suggestions are.
In case this is your first visit to our SharpBrains blog, let me first of all point out some useful resources to stay sane during the rest of the campaign: selected Brain Teasers, a list of 21 great Brain Books, over a dozen interviews with leading scientists on learning and brain-based topics, and more.
Without further ado, let’s proceed to the issues raised. We hope they provide, at the very least, good mental stimulation for you and your advisors.
4. Swimming is good, but I’d rather surf (Nancy at Teacher in a Strange Land).
5. Insurgents fighting the Dark Side (the Status Quo) (Norm at Education Notes Online).
Learning and Teaching Philosophy
6. The First Step (for Academic Success) Is Failure (Joanne at SharpBrains).
7. 1777? (Joanne Jacobs).
8. Maybe we should revisit what is the purpose of education? (Mike at Dangerously Irrelevant).
9. Who needs a college degree? (Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme).
10. Are Schools (Cognitively) Nutritive for Children’s Complex Thinking? (Tom and Christine at SharpBrains).
11. May our teaching be too successful for our own good? (Laureen at The Life without School).
From educator to educator
12. Should there be a limit to sharing best practices? (Ms Cornelius at A Shrewdness of Apes).
13. Do you manage stress well? (Gregory at SharpBrains).
14. Where in the world are my union leaders? (Woodlass at Under Assault: Teaching in NYC).
15. Is homework working? (Summer at Mom Is Teaching).
16. What is the education value of Yale’s Sex Week? (Dana at Principled Discovery).
17. What makes a good educator? (Carol at Bellringers).
18. How do we survive tough schools? (Andrew at Scenes From The Battleground).
Technology
19. Give me more of it, please! (Pat at Successful Teaching).
20. Enough. Have you heard of Gizmo High? (Matt at Going to the Mat).
21. Using technology in the Classroom 101 (Matthew at In Practice).
22. How can we integrate video in the classroom? (Matthew at Creating Lifelong Learners).
23. Anything beyond Junior Achievement? (Adam at Ipex).
24. Creating a Photography-rich book (Bogusia at Nucleus Learning)
25. How to create online content ( Larry Ferlazzo).
26. Help: how do I deal with kids who misbehave? (Mike at Education in Texas).
27. Help: what do we do with the profoundly gifted? (The “More” Child).
28. Why do we accept unhelpful labeling of kids? (Marcella at abyss2hope).
29. What is the role of nutrition? (Jackson at Alternative Channel).
30. Can we educate about Darfur? (Bill at The Tempered Radical).
Enrichment Opportunities
31. Do you play any musical instrument? (Megan, a high schooler, at SharpBrains).
32. How many plays did Shakespeare write? (Gedaly a the Bard Blog).
33. Brain Teaser: Words in your brain! (Pascale at SharpBrains).
34. Please Don’t Outsource Your Brain to your Vicepresident, ok? (Alvaro at SharpBrains).
35. After all these years…can’t we all just be happy? ( JM at “Lead From The Start”).
Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President, we hope you have enjoyed this briefing. If you want to contribute to future Carnivals of Education, you can use this simple submission form.
Enjoy the year,
35 education bloggers
