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Introduction:  An introduction to what sparked the original thought, but this essay has not gone where I originally intended it to go.  A thought, not intended to reflect on anyone, especially not myself as I tend to be very insensitive. I prefer to deemphasize the money aspect of, “poor families”, and say “intentionally marginalized communities”. The trends we see in neighborhoods such as…

Yesterday I finished 6 hours of curriculum work. This is tied to the 6 or 12 hours I spent the summer before and the hour I spent listening to a paid consultant. All of this was planned so that we can improve the achievement of our students as measured on standardized tests. This is supposed to be good for our students and I’m sure it will show some measurable gains. Yes, we talked about…

My reflection after 8 years on school board and a note to my friends who started this year. To my new school board friends. I’d like to welcome you to the school to prison pipeline From Wikipedia “… the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies. Additionally, this is due…

This is why I think democrats are missing the mark.  They claim to be for the people, but let’s use my recent example of interaction with the government for the people.  I opened an account with an online bank almost 5 years ago.  They were FDIC insured so I thought I would be ok.  About 6 months ago they went bankrupt. I was one day late in transferring my money out, damn.  After almost 6…

Why is it so difficult to understand the addition of fractions. Part, I think comes from the way we define fractions. The introduction of fractions is usually this many colored parts out of this many total. Two fifths is two boxes out of five colored in while three fourths is three out of four boxes colored in Two fifths is two boxes out of five colored in while three fourths is three out of…

That was the justification for George W. Bush’s No child Left Behind Legislation. His premise was that teachers and schools in low income districts just didn’t expect their students to be able to achieve so they didn’t push them very hard. If we would give everyone a standardized test he could objectively tell which districts and which schools were doing better and parents could then choose a…

A review or summary of Understanding brain development: Investing in young adolescents’ cognitive and social-emotional development Katie Jansen & Sarah M. Kiefer In case you didn’t know some of the hallmarks of the adolescent years are a lack of impulse control, a yearning for independence, emotional swings, disorganization, and poor decision making skills. The prefrontal cortex, the brain…

Effect Sizes and the 10-Foot Man

That is the question everyone is asking isn’t it? Seems like most of the folks talking about AI are talking about either how to stop students from using it or what they can use it for to lighten their own load. Of course what is a tool for anyway, but something to be used to help do something better, easier, or new. Wait new? What can AI allow me to do that is new? I’m not really sure. When…

I”m pretty excited. #ETMOOC2 has been organized. Learn more about it here. I almost missed it because I’ve been off of twitter for most of the last couple of months. (It’s weird though, the mastodon retweeting service I signed up for sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t even though the twitter API is supposed to be pay only now.). Whatever, I look forward to learning a bit more about AI. I…

Was Harvey Weinstein a good businessman because he was a predator?

I don’t know the man personally or care enough about him or his work to do research, I’m just wondering. It seems to me that the character traits that people seem to value the most in business are those also used by predators. The need for power and control, constantly striving to be better than the competition, those sorts of…

I”ve been writing, but for a number of reasons not hitting the publish button.

I used to know how to fix education, now I don’t so I stopped telling everyone how to teach.

I used to have deep thoughts on what was coming next. Now I don’t.

I’m not sure what I want and I’m not sure what you want, so consequently I don’t have anything.

I have some great ideas, but usually when out walking. This is…

Here I am again teaching math. I was told to teach the EngageNY curriculum. This is about 180 days of lessons and tests. I thought maybe it would be nice to present the material to the students in two ways, in the lecture format and online through Khan Academy.

My team teacher wants us to be within a lesson or two of each other on a daily basis.

Right now I’m trying to teach half the class two…

What is this week 4?

The school year is beginning to take on the uniformity where you can’t really tell one week from the other. Real content started Friday. We are starting the progression of a 15 day (or so) rotation. Pre-test, teach, post-test, analyze data.

For non-educators, the pre-test helps you group students. You don’t want too big of a spread between students in one group. Teach and formally informally…