Stevemiranda

LATEST ARTICLES ( 270 )

• The Importance of Marbury v. Madison

  Here’s another specific example of what I mean by when I say that academic learning should not be the first focus of school.At PSCS, we have two types of... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2011 DEBATE, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• What Does It Mean to “love the Child”?

  Last week, I wrote that telling students what to learn is not the point of school. And, helping students learn facts and develop skills is not the point of... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• “Not-learning”

  A week ago, I engaged in a conversation thread on this site’s Facebook page that generated a pretty good back-and-forth. It’s good enough that I’d like to... Read more

  Posted on 23 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• A Primer on Montessori Education

  Read more

  Posted on 22 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• Part Two of What I Was Writing About Yesterday

  For those of you who read yesterday’s post closely, you may have stumbled over this paragraph: “A second metaphor [is] a teacher is a therapist. According to... Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2011 DEBATE, SCHOOLING

• What’s the Value of a Tree?

  I’ve been out of graduate school for more than a decade, and, sadly, it’s rare that I encounter academic papers anymore. My friend Hannah, who is a sophomore... Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2011 DEBATE, SCHOOLING

• Yo-yo (from the Archives)

  You might say that I’m overanalyzing this but, please, hear me out. I came across this three-and-a-half minute video featuring Jensen Kimmitt, the 2010 Yo-Yo... Read more

  Posted on 19 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• The Hustle

  I’m engrossed in Doug Merlino’s brilliant book The Hustle, a social history of race and class in Seattle. It’s told through a memoir of the author’s experience... Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2011 DEBATE

• James Brown as School Principal

  I caught up with a former student, and we reminisced about the old days.She attended high school in a time when the school had gone through four or five... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• Pedagogy of Poverty

  My friend Rachel sent me a link to an essay by the always feisty Alfie Kohn in which he condemns “the pedagogy of poverty.” That’s when schools serving... Read more

  Posted on 15 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• A New Metaphor

  The old metaphor for thinking about school is the factory. Kids show up, move along a conveyor belt, everything is standardized.Everyone knows we need a new... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• The Latest from “Born to Learn”

  A brilliant three minutes and 54 seconds. (Join the discussion at www.facebook.com/reeducate. Get updates at www.twitter.com/reeducate. Read more

  Posted on 13 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• How I Developed a Phobia for Orange Traffic Cones (from the Archives)

  I was on the cross country team in high school. My coach was a very serious man.He would run us through something called “cone drills,” where he’d put orange... Read more

  Posted on 12 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• More Cheating

  I recently saw a Seattle Times article that started like this: Georgia investigators have found evidence of cheating at close to 80 percent of the Atlanta... Read more

  Posted on 11 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• The Rise of the Teachers Guild

  I just finished watching the education documentary Waiting for Superman for the first time.It does a pretty good job at describing some of the challenges... Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• Judgement

  After I graduated from college, I needed some space to clear my head. I had reflected on my 17 years of schooling and seen one year blend into another, all... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• Lowering the Bar

  A friend said to me yesterday, “I hear some people, some leaders, talk about how not every kid needs to go to college. When you hear someone say that, especiall... Read more

  Posted on 08 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• What We Can Learn from Indigenous Elders Who Can’t Count Past Two (from the...

  In his awesome book Savages, writer Joe Kane documents his experience living in the Ecuadorian rain forest with a group of indigenous people called the Huaorani. Read more

  Posted on 07 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• You Know How Many Years Separated the Wright Brothers from the Apollo 11 Moon...

  When I was in college, a friend of mine blew my mind when he said this: “You’re a basketball fan right? Check it out, I have a new program on my computer that... Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY

• The Plan to Improve Test Scores: Give Students the Exam Before They Forget the...

  Last week, I read an opinion column in the Huffington Post trying to rally support for a petition. The authors encourage states to “deploy an assessment system... Read more

  Posted on 05 July 2011 DEBATE, FAMILY, SCHOOLING, SOCIETY