For People Who Haven’t Been In School In A While: Standardized Testing

Test scores, the argument: News media says American education compares poorly to other countries on standardized tests. People want someone held responsible. Standardized tests measure students’ learning. Teachers are the ones who are responsible for that lack of learning. Let’s use standardized tests to fire teachers whose students get bad tests scores, and then hire […]

Commandments

I make my students recite the Ten Commandments. In public school. You see, there’s this part in The Crucible where the main characters are interrogated about their Christian credentials, and naming the commandments is one of the tests. Some classes get eight commandments. One only got six. We’ve never gotten all ten. So I tell […]

On Offense

There are two kinds of teachers: conservative ones who valiantly sacrifice themselves to maintain our nation’s greatness, and teachers who won’t shut up and do as they’re told. As you may know, I’m the second kind. Both kinds of teachers can have self-esteem issues. In a capitalist consumerist country, no matter how many times people […]

Irrational

Qadaffi and Charlie Sheen; Man Ray and Kierkegaard. I have mixed feelings about irrationality. Clearly, Qadaffi and Charlie Sheen are entertaining characters. Even Qadaffi’s fashion evolution discussed is fascinating. I tried to watch the Charlie Sheen interview, just because I couldn’t believe someone would say those things. If I didn’t know Qadaffi had people with […]