EducatioNation
Education for Intelligence and Freedom
Same enemy. Same stakes. Only the names have changed
>>> Most recent hooey---on how to spot logical fallacies in eduwriting.
>>> Here's recent bilge from Prof Plum---on attacks on Reading First.
Designing Effective Instruction
Something's not right with public education. When you're on the inside---as a teacher,
administrator, student, or parent---it often feels like this....
[Hieronymus Bosch. The garden of earthly delights.]
There's been an awful lot of evaluating and discussing and planning and innovating and reforming
and publishing and spending going on in the past 40 years---but it seems to be movement within the same old box,
and it doesn't seem to have produced much for all the time, effort, and money.
[M.C. Escher]
Ordinary citizens usually have no idea what educators are talking about. Authentic. Holistic. Seamless.
Best practice. Developmentally appropriate. Child centered. Construct knowledge. Standards.
And often, educators don't seem to know, either.
[Tower of Babel. Abel Grimmer, 1570-1619]
Some powerful groups seem bent on fashioning children and transforming society without the consent of
families and the public at large.
Working to transform America
Without your permission or oversight.
This leaves Professor Plum pretty confused----a trillion bucks and 200 years of public education ought to be enough to teach every kid to read, write, do math, know enough science to keep
track of discoveries being made, and know enough history and civics to make wise political choices.
So, sometimes, Professor Plum is astonished. Yes, astonished.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and
never will be." [Thomas Jefferson to C. Yancey, 1816.]
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
[Thomas Paine]
The moment you give up your principles, and your values, you are dead, your culture is dead,
your civilization is dead. Period. [Oriana Fallaci.]
Contact Prof Plum. [Or not, as the case may be.]
You've got to be well armed in this business.