Introduction
am a teacher in an inner-city school. My purpose for starting this blog is to provide readers with a format to post ideas and share and criticize my sometimes fleeting observations.
Additionally I would like to network with others who have an interest in advancing education at all levels, pre school through graduate school. Secondly, I believe that networking will allow all of us the freedom to weigh in on the governing of our schools through local, State, and/or Federal governments. With networking we are able to share readings, ideas, websites, philosophies of education or any other philosophy. Also I welcome all responses to my journals, essays, lesson ideas, and not the least, my fussing and fuming about the little annoyances that we teachers experience daily.
The tone of this blog will range from very scholarly-formal through irreverent, and possibly at times a bit vulgar but never obscene. All respondents' points of view will be published without my editing them as long as they don't cross an as-yet undefined line.
I also encourage students of all ages to read and respond to this blog. I will encourage my own students to look in and let me know what they are thinking on issues that concern them, both in and away from the classroom. Finally I would like to get responses from parents, who are a very important element in the education of their children, so that they may voice their concerns; also welcomed will be responses from all others who may not be directly affected by the education system. We all have a stake in the well-being of education in the United States. Yet we still have a long way to go.
To the careful reader,it becomes obvious that there has never really been a "Golden Age" of education in this country. In all too many classrooms procedures are carried out much the same as they were in the 1950s, or sometimes in the nineteenth century. I still hear teachers and non-teachers alike lamenting the curtailment of corporal punishment. Inner city schools, and by default our suburban schools, have been resegregated back to the days of Plessy v. Ferguson or worse. Separate and unequal continues to be the norm, the way all of us are presumed to view education. Jonathan Kozol did not exaggerate when he wrote that education has been set back a hundred years in this country. Nothing will change, except for the worse, if we don't begin to stand up to the policy makers who impose unrealistic and unfair standards and practices in our system of education.
On the positive side, I have read many aritcles by teachers and other professionals who have been successful in difficult situations such as inner city middle schools. I have provided (I will, once I figure out how to edit html) links to helpful web addresses.
On that upbeat note I will conclude this introductory on our challenges in the
field of education. I hope to hear from you soon.
Additionally I would like to network with others who have an interest in advancing education at all levels, pre school through graduate school. Secondly, I believe that networking will allow all of us the freedom to weigh in on the governing of our schools through local, State, and/or Federal governments. With networking we are able to share readings, ideas, websites, philosophies of education or any other philosophy. Also I welcome all responses to my journals, essays, lesson ideas, and not the least, my fussing and fuming about the little annoyances that we teachers experience daily.
The tone of this blog will range from very scholarly-formal through irreverent, and possibly at times a bit vulgar but never obscene. All respondents' points of view will be published without my editing them as long as they don't cross an as-yet undefined line.
I also encourage students of all ages to read and respond to this blog. I will encourage my own students to look in and let me know what they are thinking on issues that concern them, both in and away from the classroom. Finally I would like to get responses from parents, who are a very important element in the education of their children, so that they may voice their concerns; also welcomed will be responses from all others who may not be directly affected by the education system. We all have a stake in the well-being of education in the United States. Yet we still have a long way to go.
To the careful reader,it becomes obvious that there has never really been a "Golden Age" of education in this country. In all too many classrooms procedures are carried out much the same as they were in the 1950s, or sometimes in the nineteenth century. I still hear teachers and non-teachers alike lamenting the curtailment of corporal punishment. Inner city schools, and by default our suburban schools, have been resegregated back to the days of Plessy v. Ferguson or worse. Separate and unequal continues to be the norm, the way all of us are presumed to view education. Jonathan Kozol did not exaggerate when he wrote that education has been set back a hundred years in this country. Nothing will change, except for the worse, if we don't begin to stand up to the policy makers who impose unrealistic and unfair standards and practices in our system of education.
On the positive side, I have read many aritcles by teachers and other professionals who have been successful in difficult situations such as inner city middle schools. I have provided (I will, once I figure out how to edit html) links to helpful web addresses.
On that upbeat note I will conclude this introductory on our challenges in the
field of education. I hope to hear from you soon.
posted by James at 3:21 PM
1 comments
