From the trenches - a blog with a unique point of view

I reviewed Dennis Fermoyles's book In the Trenches in this blog last January and commented on the author's frank and realistic appraisal of public education and the problems it faces. It was a real breath of fresh air after reading so many ivory tower pundits both in print and online. (And yes, while I do work in the public schools, I don't work with kids in the classroom on a daily basis. My ivory tower has leaky windows and a crumbling foundation, but I still consider myself an ivory tower sort of guy.)

I am happy to report (belatedly) that Dennis now has a blog - From the Trenches of Public Ed. and he has been writing regularly for it. His most recent post was a review of the nasty book, Education Myths by Jay Greene about which he was much kinder than I would have been, based on my quick browse through while at the bookstore.

But what I have been enjoying most in his blog are Dennis's explications of his PUBLIC EDUCATION'S SELF-PROCLAIMED DEFENDER'S (PESPD's ) EDUCATION MYTHS. The are:

1. When a student fails, the teacher has failed.
2. The American people demand high standards from their schools.
3. Education should be a right of every student.
4. All high school aged kids should be encouraged to stay in school.
5. The key factor in the learning that takes place in any classroom is the quality of the teacher.
6. The key factor in determining a student's performance is his or her academic ability.
7. God is not allowed in public schools.
8. Teachers lack incentive to do a good job unless they are held accountable.
9. Public schools will improve if we use vouchers to force them to compete with private schools.
10. Because of our poor public education system, we are falling behind other nations.

As you can tell, this is by no means mainstream educational thinking. But it is thinking and Dennis has the experience to back up his beliefs.

Both his book and blog deserve a wide audience. 

More e-book news

Interesting article in April 24, 2006 New York Times on how newspapers are looking to transition themselves to e-paper.

Thanks to John Dyer for sending this to me.

 

Shocking insight - boys and girls are different

It was published a few days ago in a number of newspapers around the country, but syndicated columnist David Brooks's column "Biological differences key to addressing boys' underachievement" is a fun read - and important. He writes:

It could be, in short, that biological factors influence reading tastes, even after accounting for culture.

Yeah, well, duh. 

Ask any practicing librarian if boys and girls like different kinds of books. Even back in the dark ages of education when I was in college, University of Iowa professor G. Robert Carlson (Books and the Teenage Reader) flatly stated "Girls will read boy books (and books with male protagonists), but boys won't read girl books." Check out the work of Jon Scieszka at Guys Read.

Identifying, acquiring and promoting library materials of particular interest to our Y-chromosome crowd has been a serious challenge for school and young adult librarians over the past few years. Once again, librarians are ahead of the curve!

Personally, I have always been bothered by the discrimination against reading quality, literate non-fiction in schools. Seems like most reading assigned is either a deathly dull textbook passage or "sensitive" fiction. You want guys to read? You need to provide (and not stigmatize) adventure, action, plot and facts!

 Brooks concludes:

During the 1970s, it was believed that gender is a social construct and that gender differences could be eliminated via consciousness-raising. But it turns out gender is not a social construct. Consciousness-raising doesn't turn boys into sensitively poetic pacifists. It just turns many of them into high school and college dropouts who hate reading. 

30% of today's freshman will drop out of school before graduation. Is it because we make them read "girls'" books?