Pat’s Polemics

We were having our usual Saturday morning breakfast, my dad and I, and talking about the war, something we often did. He fought through a (Continue Reading)

This morning I was standing in line waiting for a blood test. Four of us got to chatting. About the time the doors opened, the (Continue Reading)

Customs remain embedded with us after the initial raison-d’etre is gone. The other day my wife said she did not like to sit out on (Continue Reading)

This is the start of a new category I’ve been meaning to put into my blog. As the description says, it is an assortment of (Continue Reading)

I ran into a young girl last night who asked me if I had taught at her old high school, a private one. I confirmed (Continue Reading)

Over the years I’ve engaged in intense discussions with teachers about how to conduct yourself in the classroom. On another listserv a group of us (Continue Reading)

This report was copied to the Diane Ravitch blog. I copy out only part of it. The upshot seems to be that moderate, not high, (Continue Reading)

Mike’s post forces us to look very closely at what happens when we interact and in that interaction, someone learns. As the late departed Yogi (Continue Reading)

Think of doing this with a class of high school freshmen: taking each one as an individual. I am sure, Jody, when you approached each (Continue Reading)

Chris, you are truly courageous. Simple disagreement is seen as hostility and unkindness. Everyone’s cute new trick for the week has to be praised even (Continue Reading)

Diane Ravitch quotes Fareed Zakaria” “In truth, though, the United States has never done well on international tests, and they are not good predictors of (Continue Reading)

My son is going into administration and my son-in-law is moving to Portland, in a blue state. I retired two years ago and would not (Continue Reading)

Few people would argue that the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do and I use the word “people” advisedly because Bill Kristol (Continue Reading)

One day I was mopping the floor and a family member advised me to open a counseling business in my home as a tax write-off. (Continue Reading)

This one gets to me. I recall the way non-members at my school would badmouth the union but gladly take the benefits we won and (Continue Reading)

From Joining the Literacy Club, first p. 49: “The word ‘skill’ is extensively misused in education. There is a tendency to define everything to be (Continue Reading)

Look at this great attitude: If they are going to give me the tech (and I love my techy toys, no matter what people say (Continue Reading)

Here’s one where someone in a foreign country asked about my teaching style: That’s a deep subject. It is EXTREMELY culture-bound (tahziz ka paaband ?? (Continue Reading)

It’s one of the reasons I left teaching. Admittedly, at 73 I’m low-tech in everything, but what I did was observe how teachers used technology (Continue Reading)

This comes from Michael Hynes, one of the best superintendents on Long Island, Néw York, epicenter of the Opt Out movement: Public Schools Work- We (Continue Reading)

This from an ACTFL Smartbrief: In the 2014-2015 school year, nearly 12 million K-12 students in public districts will take college readiness assessments online for (Continue Reading)

Sent to the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 28, 2015 Paul Peterson (Op-ed, Feb. 23) asserts that yearly testing done under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (Continue Reading)