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College, High School and Homework

College, High School and Homework

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I guess I am currently sensitive to the ‘homework” issue.  I wanted to share with you a post by Scott McLeod, Homework Authoritarianism and Student Choice.  I was particularly struck by the section regarding college vs high school work expectations. Here in MA schools must provide a minimum of 990 hrs of structured instruction over a 180 day school year.  That works out to be about 27.5 hrs a week of structured instruction, this is exclusive of study, lunch, homeroom and passing time. So a typical HS student is in an…

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Observations from a Waiting Room

Observations from a Waiting Room

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Earlier this week I spent a good chunk of time in a waiting room at Children’s Hospital Boston.  The patients ranged in age from infants to the early 20’s. One thing was common for all the school/college age children, everyone was doing homework and every parent, myself included, was trying to get their child to focus on schoolwork. I heard echoes of the following: “Please just get your homework done, I don’t need another call” “You are missing lots of…

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Nerdfighter Mom

Nerdfighter Mom

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I am blessed to be the mom of two nerdfighter teens. The nerdfighter community celebrates curiosity, learning, creativity and compassion. It is primarily made up of teens, young adults and some older folks like me, a nerdfighter mom. Nerdfighters epitomize what I as a parent and educator want for my children and students: a love a learning and participation in a supportive community that encourages exploration of ones passions and sharing the joy of knowing and learning. Nerdfighters participate in…

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Search Engines, Social Media and Privacy

Search Engines, Social Media and Privacy

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Its been cool and damp on Cape Cod the last few days so I thought I would take the opportunity to work on material for a workshop, Web Literacy: Researching the Web for a Different Perspective, I am facilitating in July. There is a section of the workshop that covers how search engines work. This was pretty straightforward a few years back, before social media and behavioral advertising became main stream. At a basic level search engines ranked material on the…

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Individual or Group Think

Individual or Group Think

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Public education is a schizophrenic system.  On one hand we talk about differentiating instruction and personalizing learning and on the other we group and target our non-readers, poor math students, those at risk for not passing the state tests.  We speak of individualism but act on collectivism. These words carry a variety of meanings, but I want to use them in terms of education. We, for the most part, agree that people have different skills and talents and learn at…

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Patriot’s Day

Patriot’s Day

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We are at the end of April vacation in Massachusetts and Maine. April vacation always occurs the week of April 19th, Patriot’s Day around here.  A remembrance of the battle of Lexington and Concord, the start of the war that set us firmly on the road to independence from England. I have always been fascinated by the time period 1600 -1820.   There was a change in thinking which resulted in a change in governance, power and the world map. …

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Private Schools and Educational Reform

Private Schools and Educational Reform

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This morning while browsing through my feeds I came across this article “Why Don’t Top Private Schools Adopt Corporate Driven Reforms?”  (Thanks for sharing Skip) As someone who has worked in private and public schools it has always fascinated me why public schools do what they do. I am often bewildered by my experiences in public education.  This may be because I began my career in private schools and have never fully transitioned my thinking into public education. Before you…

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