News : Take Politics Out of Education

A political candidate has recently called for "taking politics out of the classroom", just the latest to do so, and I am sure another such call will be made tomorrrow. This is obviously political, but it is also stupid. It is stupidity or the part of the speaker, or an assumption of stupidity in the target audience, or both. Education is a political act. Full stop. Period. What these people mean is "taking views and/or content I do not like out of the classroom".

News : No sympathy for student who beat teacher unconscious

This story came up a couple of times in my educational news feeds, and while it raises several issues, the one I'd like to address is that line thing. Where is the line between your rights and mine? Or alternatively, between the rights of the individual and those of the group. In this case, the school clearly made terrible policy decisions, although I do wonder to what extent they were forced into these decisions by district or state policy and by state law.

The ties that bind

One of the private schools near me has a uniform, one which is largely generic and pretty much the same for boys and girls. Both wear white button-down shirts, both wear v-necked sweaters and both wear ties. However now the girls are complaining at having to wear ties. They're not unhappy at everyine wearing ties, they appear not to dislike the ties themselves. They are unhappy that they as girls have to wear ties.

I'm really popular in Singapore

Every now and then I check traffic to this blog, and this week I have been amazed to see readership jump from the low hundreds to the mid thousands. And whereas hitherto, most of my readers have been US-based, this week they are almost entirely lcoated in Singapore.

News : Middle School assignment has parents discussing what’s appropriate at what age

The thing I find most ufrstrating about most educationally-related decisions, read judgments, is that so many people make so much noise to the effect that any particular decision is simple or dichotomous. Rarely, if ever, is a decision made by any educator at any level only "x' or "not "x", or without cause and/or effect. This one is very much in the news at the moment, and again we have the black and white pundits (what's more extreme than armchair-quarterbacking?) engaged what is in effect reductio ad absurdum.

Generational or Stupidity?

Every now and then the mysterious (or possibly sagacious) Youtube algorthm recommends something on the lines of entitlement meets reality. In a recent offering, a princess was arrested because she sat on a car police were trying to tow in an attempt to prevent the removal. The car was illegally parked, blocked the street, and was unregistered. She claimed the wreck belonged to her boyfriend but he was not there to prove ownership. Both the way she spoke to the police, and her reaction to the threat and ultimate application of arrest were revealing. I was reminded of this yesterday when I met a former colleague for coffee who told me the following tale.

It worked for me, but it was really corruption

The Youtube algorithm just sent me to one of those first amendment auditor channels where someone tried to do something at his local city office and couldn't. He was able to capture it all on camera which of course didn't go well for the city or the clerk. I was reminded of something which happened to me several years ago which only worked out because of who I knew. 

I have never used recruiters; here's why

Last week I was contacted by a recruiter looking for a principal for a school near here. He was new to recruiting and had done a LinkedIn search for possible candidates in this area. His challenge was not only that he was new to recruiting; he was new to educational recruiting and knew nothing about the school, the role, or the sector. I know this particular school. It is not a particularly good one, and is owned by a for-profit company owned by venture capitalists and known for its emphasis on extracting profit. Its principals are not principals, but bureaucrats in a top-down structure who are charged with implementing central-office policies and procedures.

When should schools begin their academic year?

I have just read a commentary on the differences around the country in terms of starting the school year. Without getting into the length of the school year, which is in and of itself an important discussion, I do think there are two important considerations in this discussion.

I blame Fox

 At the risk of seeming political, I blame Fox. Allow me to explain.