Book bans

The surge in book bans, or at least attempts, across the country is challenging and like most things in education, is nowhere near as simple or as black-and-white as is suggested by so many commentators. I will share some of my thoughts below.

United Airlines is in trouble and it's because of me

For about 20 years, I flew only United Airlines (UAL) for work and leisure, and I had a United credit card as did the school where I was Director. I even signed up for their dining and shopping programs to earn more miles. I had a few vacations using United miles I brought my mother-in-law to visit several times using miles and the school sent several teachers to conferences using miles. Until one day United took them all away.

Gas stoves? I removed gas from my school

We hear a lot of discussion at the moment on gas stoves. Somebody somewhere said something about ending gas stoves, the Republicans say that Biden is sending goons with guns to take your gas stoves and Democrats are saying that they have never said any such thing. Meanwhile, cities worldwide are implementing restrictions or outright bans on new gas connections. Fifteen years ago, I began removing gas services from my school and at the time of my departure, we were down to gas in one building only; here's why.

Chat GPT

This artifical intelligence (AI) chat bot is really cat-amongst-pigeoning in the international community and while none of my friends or former colleagues have raised it with me, I have seen much clutching at pearls and wringing of hands in the media. Again, some of these concerns are misplaced.

Jailing cat ladies

In the reporting and commentary on the jailing of two women for feeding cats, almost all the disdain and vitriol has been directed at the police. This is misplaced and wrong.

Why debate doesn't happen in the US

I was listening to a commentary on a recent congressional "debate" reducing school violence after the Uvalde tragedy, and as could have been predicted, one of the speakers made a comment along the lines of "the left does not want a genuine solution they only want to remove all of our guns". Sadly, too much of the discussion focused on reaction to violence rather than prevention, and to fortress approaches, but that is for another day. What struck me about the "debate" was that no successive speaker appeared to have listened to the earlier speaker had said.

What's wrong with ESL

During my weekly coffee with a former colleague, I found was, at least initially, misunderstood. I am not against ESL ("English as a Second Language", aka E2L) provision, but the way it is designed and implemented. Let me explain.

I don't like Wikipedia, I don't trust Wikipedia, I don't use Wikipedia

Several years ago I was Prinicipal of a new school and as we were trying to build our reputation, I regularly checked our presence n the media and social media. One day, I discovered that the school had been listed on Wikipedia (what is the verb for this? described? listed?), although the entry included several errors of fact such as number of rooms or hours or location, all easily-verifiable.

A critical race for schools

Interesting coffee-chat yesterday with a former colleague yesterday. She told me of a public school district where the board had banned "critical race theory" (CRT) which immediately lead to a 50% drop in teacher applicants to the district. I don't know how accurate this is, or even where it apparently occurred, however four things stood out.

Micro-managing

I have commented before on boards messing things up, and how invariably they do the same thing. They involve themselves in the running of tthe school, or in other words they insert themselves into operational matters. Boards have three responsibilities or roles only : they set overall strategic goals and direction: they approve the budget, especially long-term (ie strategic) and infrastructure; and they hire and supervise the Director. Anything else is problematic, and a slippery slope to disaster.