Three good ones

I've had many thoughts (several of them frustrations) swimming around in my head lately, but I've simply not had the time to write. Along came three great posts today that expressed so well what I was thinking about - and wished I'd been able to write. Then while I was cleaning up in the back yard, the hummingbirds started arriving. I took a bunch of pictures, and some of them seemed to take on the attitude and demeanor of the authors, all teachers...

1. Thomas Friedman in Shanghai, from Jeff Utecht. "But that the best skill we can teach kids is to 'Learn how to learn.' But how do we do that in an old school in an unflat school. Does a school need to be flat in order to teach and learn to learn? While I agree with Friedman on this point I don't think that goes far enough. Learning how to learn is one thing. Learning to learn, unlearn, relearn, remix, mash up, unlearn, relearn, is something completely different. And that you can not do in a non flat school......"
   
   
2. Classroom 2.0, from Clarence Fisher. He cites and discusses an article by Daniel Pink, now five years old, and says, "I'm getting to the point where I want to be finished with old ways. I truly believe that we are actively harming the kids in our classrooms when we are not preparing them for the society they live in. But more and more I roll around at night, get up early in the mornings and wonder what those new ways look like. Do we even know what we want? ..."
   
   
3. Content Filtration: A little dirt for your health?, from Vicki Davis. My favorite part is when she dishes out some advice for those in charge of the filters, starting out with: "Solutions can emerge on this issue, but professionalism and trust must be present if improvement is to occur. To me, this discussion boils down to several things:
   * If you want students to treat teachers with respect, treat teachers with respect.
   * If you want students to treat teachers as the authority, give them some authority...."

Thanks Jeff, Clarence, and Vicki!