Reaping what you sow; facing consequences

I heard an interview the other day with lawyer Sidney Powell. While I am not commenting on the rights or wrongs of what she said and did, I was struck by a comment she made. I am paraphrasing, but in summary, she felt it was wrong that she was being sued for what she had said about a company and/or its people. Her comment was that there should be no followup from the aggrieved parties and that she should be able to say whatsoever she wants about whomsoever she wants without any consequence.

Is Pre-School expensive?

Recently the press has devoted much time and many column inches to the federal budget proposal on childcare fees. Amongst this wall-to-wall coverage, we hear (read?) again and again about how unaffordable childcare is, and tisis frequently framed as being wrong, unjustifiable, excessive profit-taking and capitalism gone. Is it? I not seen (heard?) any explanation of childcare pricing; again, things are not what they seem.

Old News

I have spent several hours going through one box of many resources accumulated over a lifetime of teaching and administration. One box, taken from a bedroom and a shedful of boxes. This particular box was a collection of carefully collected, collated, organized and filed newspaper articles, commentaries, editorials and so on.  Each piece had been careully cut and trimmed, pasted onto a piece of paper as a background and labelled with date and the name of the publication to produce a photocopiable master. Some were accompanied by ditto masters, some by OHP transparencies. Thousands of hours of work, all on its way to the recycling bin.

Update to my comment on mediocre hires

I wrote earlier about a national organization hiring into senior positions two people I knew and who I knew to be mediocre. Well, there is an update. Two really. The first concerns their performance, the second concerns me.

We need schools

I had dinner last night with a former parent. When I say former, he is still a parent but his children are no longer my students. He is a self-described "conservative" so of course I had to ask. What does that mean in terms of school? His first response was that education is a private family matter and so schools should either be fee-paying for-profit or not-for-profit, or free provided by charities or religious organizations. He argued there should be no public schools and therefore no taxes to pay for them. I disagreed.

Schools and choosing cookies

The other day I saw a meme. I don't remember the exact wording, but the metaphor represented stuck in my mind. In essence, at a school PTA meeting (for example) a plate of cookies has been placed by the door. One parent takes one cookie, in case the cookies run out. Another parent takes three cookies, in case the cookies run out. The next day our local Costco imposed limits on certain items.

What's wrong with multiple-choice assessment?

Not much (I am assuming that you read the headline). What's wrong with the use of multiple-choice assessment? Plenty. It's typically not fit for purpose, and it's generally misunderstood and/or over-valued.

Children have been harmed by the covid pandemic

I was just sent this article from the Guardian which compels me to put pen to paper, as it were, before i have finished my coffee. The findings are troubling, while the source of the findings heat my blood to the point of ebullition. IQ is a dangerous term and the concept should have been discarded in 1904. 

Promotion, appropriateness and placement

Regular readers and colleagues will know that I believe in developmentally-appropriate programming and am against birthday-based class assignments. Other than in some large cities, and the independent school sector, the typical approach is the latter which precludes the former. So for many families, the best option for "advanced" students, formerly known as "Gifted and Talented" and today often called "curious" (I kid you not!), is acceleration or skipping a grade. However, a recent study suggests that this is not without risk. 

To be (masked) or not to be

The current debates on schools and/or district requiring students and staff to wear masks involve two important considerations. The first concerns the value or efficacy of masks and I leave that to experts in the field. I am not a doctor, epidemiologist or maskologist. The second concerns the authority of the school and/or district to make and apply its own rules and here we are on a slippery slope. In this sense, I worry that we are careening towards a cliff.