Dangerously Irrelevant

Podcast - Conversation with Dr. Dan Willingham, University of Virginia

Many of you have been participating in and/or following the conversations for this year’s CASTLE Summer Book Club. 

I am pleased to announce that my interview today with Dr. Dan Willingham, professor at the University of Virginia and author of Why Don’t Students Like School?, is now available as either streaming audio or a downloadable podcast.

Happy listening!

CASTLE Round-Up - Week of June 8

This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…

LeaderTalk

Sue King discussed her thoughts on wrapping up another school year.

Barbara Barreda noted that we need to rethink learning and curriculum resources when we move to 1:1 laptop programs in our schools.

Angela Maiers wrote about students who read without meaning.

EdJurist

Justin Bathon was busy last week! He wrote about the always-exciting area of teacher pension funds, the digital efficiencies that may come with electronic textbooks, an editorial in The Atlantic about K-12 education, and Senator Harrison Williams. He also highlighted the National Conference of State Legislators’ online bill tracking database and wondered if NCLB is a ‘hostage of fortune.’

In addition, Justin teed off on a news story about student sexual harassment:

The operating assumption here, and it is explicitly acknowledged in the article, is that kids are sexually harassing each other all over the place. Kids are probably exposing themselves everyday, fondling each other, forcing kisses on each other, raping each other. That is the clear modus operandi of all teenagers because they are "hormonally charged." To support these assumptions, she quotes a consultant who would benefit if such was the national perception. We must assume the worst, and that assumption must override any data ... because, well, we all know that schools and tennagers are bad, in all cases.

Dangerously Irrelevant

Posting here at Dangerously Irrelevant was light as I was busy with Summer Book Club preparation. I posted two book club updates:

• CASTLE Summer Book Club – Update 2
• CASTLE Summer Book Club – Update 3

I also squeezed in a quick note about why I never let my visitors’ ability to comment on my old posts expire.

Happy reading!

CASTLE Round-Up - Week of June 1

This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week… 

Edjurist

Scott Bauries discussed how the No Child Left Behind Act has introduced some new angles into school finance equity lawsuits. Scott also shared some initial thoughts about the burgeoning movement toward national curriculum standards.

Justin Bathon highlighted some issues related to a parent’s request to read the Bible in her son’s kindergarten class.

LeaderTalk

Kimberly Moritz wants to know: Why do we do it this way? She answers: Fear of reproach is how we end up closing the doors to our classrooms and offices and doing the same things year after year.

Mark Stock also asked a question: What does school reform look like when the National Education Association agrees with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?

Ryan Bretag said, “In this day and age when content is available anytime, anywhere, and to anyone, classrooms can no longer be tethered to the content-driven, physical spaces defined by 20th Century methodologies.”

Jayson Richardson highlighted some generational differences. Apparently I’m part of the Nike Generation.

Dennis Richards noted that 98% of kindergarteners were classified as geniuses when it came to divergent thinking (which is what you do when you are not forced to conform…).

Dangerously Irrelevant

I gave an update on the CASTLE Summer Book Club and I posted three quotes from Richard Longworth’s absolutely brilliant book, Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism:

• Any job that does not require face-to-face contact with a customer can be outsourced
• They are totally unqualified for any job other than the ones they just lost
• Biosciences will hire no dropouts

I also wrapped up my series of quotes from Michael Port's The Think Big Manifesto:

• We are the biggest obstacle
• We are squandering the gifts of the universe
• Get comfortable with discomfort

Finally, I reinstated the Not So Irrelevant feature of this blog, which I use to highlight various links of interest from around the Web. School administrators are busy. Hopefully I can steer them toward some online resources that will be informative and helpful. This time I’m limiting my selections to just 5 links per day. Last week I posted 25 links:

• Not so irrelevant 015
• Not so irrelevant 016
• Not so irrelevant 017
• Not so irrelevant 018
• Not so irrelevant 019 (I think this one’s the best)

Happy reading!

CASTLE Round-Up - Week of May 25

This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…

LeaderTalk

James Yap discussed how a highly-acclaimed deaf education program actually treats deafness as a pathology.

Reggie Engebritson celebrated Graduation Day with the seven graduates of her alternative school.

Edjurist

Justin Bathon highlighted his new article on free legal research resources and discussed the intersections of school district student residency requirements and child support payments.

Justin also concluded his series on search, seizure, and school resource officers and asked why there are no education law professors on the Law Profs Blog Network.

Dangerously Irrelevant

I kicked off the second annual CASTLE Summer (Online) Book Club and asked for help identifying blogs and web sites where parents were writing about their local school districts. I also stirred up some controversy by calling two faculty members ‘stupid.’

I tried to wrap my head around some American workforce data and discussed two key questions for organizations with an online presence:

1. Why should I come at all?
2. Why should I come back?

I highlighted the upcoming Constructing Modern Knowledge conference, created a Kindle version of this blog, and reviewed the award-winning book, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy.

We also wrapped Episode 6 of the 4 Guys Talking podcast, which was one of the best we’ve had to date.

Happy reading (and listening)!

CASTLE Round-Up - Week of May 18

This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…

EdJurist

Over at CASTLE’s education law blog, Justin Bathon noted that eventually we need to ‘get over’ the visceral emotions associated with the Columbine school shooting and stop overreacting to student behavior. Justin also wrote about the federal stimulus funds imbroglio in South Carolina that has resulted in the governor suing the state legislature.

Occasional guest blogger Scott Bauries shared his thoughts on restraint and seclusion to control the behavior of special education students. He also threw up some initial thoughts about cyberbullying and the First Amendment. 

LeaderTalk

Cyberbullying also was on the mind of LeaderTalk contributor Nancy Flynn. She shared some of her perspectives on the issue as an elementary school principal.

Kevin Riley wrote about ‘spinning heel kicks’ and mapping the Taekwondo ideas of mastery and ability grouping to schools and standardized testing.

Dangerously Irrelevant

Here at Dangerously Irrelevant, I put up what may be one of my favorite posts ever, Are educational leadership faculty seen as ‘leaders’ by the leaders that they serve?

I also posted two lists that have gotten some attention on Twitter:

• Top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy school administrators
• Top 10 K12 Online 2008 podcasts for busy school administrators

Other posts last week included some of my own thoughts about an elementary school cyberbullying incident, a notification about our upcoming Episode 6 of the 4 Guys Talking podcast and my quest to find out a little bit about my readers. Additionally, I explored the idea of how to get the Twitter feeds of all Iowa educators (and, also, all schools, districts, or universities) in one place.

Happy reading!

CASTLE Round-Up - Week of May 11

This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…

LeaderTalk

At LeaderTalk, Barbara Barreda proposed that we “join our teachers in the ritual of closing down the school year by taking stock of our office and jettisoning the bottom 20%... the things that are good ideas but not great or critical.”

When we’re drowning in social media, Angela Maiers reminds us to just BREATHE.

Inbox Zero for Social Networking: Just BREATHE

View more presentations from angelamaiers.

Chris Hitch asked how we can find ways to motivate our staff in non-monetary ways during these difficult budgetary times and offered a few suggestions of his own.

EdJurist

Over at EdJurist, CASTLE’s education law blog, Justin Bathon said that we can learn a few things from NASCAR about randomized drug testing of teachers.

Justin also noted that

We absolutely need clarity from the courts on whether school resource officers are more like school employees or more like police. This having it both ways stuff (to the detriment of the students in all cases) has got to stop.

Finally, Justin posted Episode 4 of EdJurist TV, which focused on interesting student discipline cases from last year.

Dangerously Irrelevant

Here at Dangerously Irrelevant, my post, It’s not ‘the tests.’ It’s us., generated quite a bit of interesting commentary.

I posted a new video from Stephen Heppell and another of Seth Godin at TED. I also pointed to an interesting graphic from Tech&Learning regarding what students want in e-textbooks, highlighted AASA’s upcoming Seattle Summit, and showed the name badge ribbons that I’m bringing to NECC. I gave updates on my quest to identify model 21st century schools, the number of recipes on BlogTweetCook.org, and the lack of effective communication in my local school district.

Oh, yeah, Episode 5 of 4 Guys Talking (with Lane Mills) is now available.

Happy reading!