Parents ‘n Schools

This entry, from back in early April 2008, introduces ASCD as a favourite source of mine for schooling insights and edgy thinking. It also touches on technology in schooling, a favourite topic here at good ol’ PnS. Ancient kings and princes weren’t famous for incorporating technology… until it came crashing through their castle walls. Same, […]

[Read more →]

The theme of “PD for Parents” runs through this website, and this is an early entry on the subject. The “30-year-old TV Guide” analogy is a favourite of mine. I apologize for possibly offending any readers who maintain a collection of TV Guides going that far back… but you maybe wouldn’t get the point, anyway. […]

[Read more →]

Here’s an entry posted by me in the first few days of this website (March 2008), in a style suggesting that I didn’t expect it to last very long and that I needed to “spit out” some stuff. I apologize. For the style… not the point. I am constantly reminded of ways that government schooling […]

[Read more →]

School is out hereabouts for the next couple weeks over the holiday season, and so I will also take a break from writing about schools here at good ol’ PnS until the new year.
I shall leave you with the assignment to search www.ted.com for matters educational, of which there is a rich supply.
Find your way […]

[Read more →]

In a paper published this past month titled “Learning to Lead”, authors Joe Nathan and Joanna Plotz of the University of Minnesota’s Center for School Change take the extraordinary step of going OUTSIDE the world of schooling to inquire of leaders in business what lessons they might offer for potential leaders in schooling. Among the […]

[Read more →]

As you wrap those presents of internet-capable cell phones, simulation software and Facebook accounts, don’t think of them as toys or games… think of them as “college preparation”. Because that’s how post-secondary learning is increasingly being supplied (and, fingers crossed, how K-12 learning will be increasingly supplied).
As described by Washington, D.C. writer and education policy […]

[Read more →]

It is -30 degrees around these parts this week. (Celsius or Fahrenheit, doesn’t really matter, freakin’ cold either way.)
In the natural gas business, relied upon to deliver fuel to people’s homes, things start to happen to the gas wells and pipelines that render it harder to get such fuel where it most needs to be. […]

[Read more →]

Perhaps you ask yourself…
… how do I tell my friends and neighbours what I know to be true about schooling?
How about you tell me.
Then I’ll tell them.
(And we’ll pretend it came from someone… important.)
Please tell me “one true thing”.
I’ll put them together into a handy collection of true things about schooling.
Then we’ll all share.
Here’s my […]

[Read more →]

“What we have now is a finance system that is focused on maintaining programs and paying adults, not on searching for the most effective way to educate our children.”
That is one of the introductory statements of a recently released report titled “Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools” (the Final Report from the Center on Reinventing […]

[Read more →]

FORTUNE magazine pays a lot of attention to Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and Bill Gates pays a lot of attention to public education. No surprise that this week’s FORTUNE magazine should contain a four-page article describing the altered focus of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (custodians of not only Mr. Gates’ fortune but also Warren […]

[Read more →]