The Elementary Educator

In terms of academic subjects, my first love is math.  It’s only fitting, then, that I’ll be presenting this week’s best education posts from around the blogosphere using a number theme.

5:  Posts that, if you are in a hurry, you’d be remiss in skipping.  This week’s best of the best are: Mathew Needleman’s assertion that 90% of student misbehavior can be prevented by increasing student engagement and using some proactive management strategies, The Tempered Radical’s question, “Is techonology actually having a positive impact on teaching and learning? (and is our answer to this question simply a reflection of whether technology seems to work for us personally?)”, Lorem Ipsum’s scathing ”Why Gifted Students Still Hate School”, a counterintuitive post asking if Child-Centered Learning has gone too far, and Lead From the Start’s post about great teachers being “warm demanders” who care enough about children to demand their very best.

Other great posts, along with the number that I associate them with:

0: Net result of a UK gathering where Gordon Brown used a community meeting to get the preconceived outcome he was hoping for

Also 0: the love between NYC teachers and the press, which complains (falsely, according to Under Assault) that teachers won’t speak on the record for newspaper reporters

$0:  The cost of Open Source software, which Sophistpundit asserts that all schools should be using

.84 standard deviations: The amount of improvement that D-Ed Reckoning says Project Follow Through can make using Direct Instruction

1:  Fifth-grade teacher who kept a child’s special ed. folder, thereby preventing the teachers in Bluebird’s district from offering that child those services in sixth and seventh grades

$1:  A good life lesson for kids can come from just one dollar: don’t spend it all! 

1%:  A Voice From the Middle’s hypothetical amount of bad teachers that taint public opinion of the other 99%

2:  The number of months What It’s Like on the Inside has been an instruction coach, leaving love notes and wooing teachers all the while

Also 2:  Students who did well in a chemistry class that Andrea uses to criticize the notion of grading on a curve

3: Languages that an elementary teacher has her students say the Pledge of Allegiance in, much to the chagrin of one parent, who wants the Pledge to be recited in English only.

Also 3:  Schools sought to try a new program designed to increase students’ reading scores

3.5 to 4.0:  Grades some Latinos in Silicon Valley feel are “uncool,” according to a recent post from Joanne Jacobs

4:  High school seniors suspended for having a barbeque at Linda Vermeulen’s school, despite them getting the OK to do so beforehand

5:  The number of parents NYC Educator managed to talk to during parent-teacher conferences (before resorting to stealing parents from other classrooms!)

Also 5: The number of reasons why Bellringers isn’t so enamored with his teaching job right about now

6: The number of musical strategies Daniel over at Music Makes Sense offers us to help students with memorizing

The 7th to 11th of April: A school week in which Mrs. Bowes’ class will attempt to conduct class without any products made in China (what a great visual for students!)

8 lbs:  The typical weight of a student’s head, the space in which Simply Teaching wonders what might really be going on as he teaches

8″:  The size of Scheiss Weekly’s hall passes, just one of the many things she reminisces over in thinking back to her middle school teaching days

9:  The number of classroom management changes Larry Ferlazzo had to make to keep his class headed in the right direction when five new students suddenly joined the mix; Larry also refers us to this Time magazine article about what the world eats for use in a geography or social studies class

10:  Core principles from Obama’s recent speech on race, as listed at The Essential Blog, which could be used to make the speech an extremely teachable moment for your students; on the other hand, Benjamin Baxter, always the contrarion, says you should focus not on Obama’s speech but on Reverend Wright’s actual statements as an even better source for class discussion

Also 10: Slate magazine is running a 10-part series entitled “Fixing It” that is aimed at fixing the Bush Administration’s alleged errors; Matt Johnston takes issue with the educational “fix” Slate proposes, which is to drastically change No Child Left Behind (yes, you read that right: Johnston takes a stance supporting NCLB — you’d better read his post for that reason alone!)

12 to 1: A college’s student-to-faculty ratio that might sound misleadingly appealing

14:  Henry Winkler (aka the Fonz) inspirational quotes for teachers as recorded by Pat Hensley

20th: High School reunion, which David Cohen feared attending, all because he (incorrectly) assumed that others might look down on him for being “just” a teacher

20:  Different notable ways that students have managed to get suspended recently, as compiled by The Core Knowledge Blog

24: links offered by I Thought a Think in his own personal “Carnival of Email“

25%: The percentage of students who graduate from Detroit public schools; so, Nancy Flanagan wonders aloud, do we really need to make school include more competition?  (Her answer: No)

25 years: The time it’s been since the famous “A Nation At Risk” assessment; Education Notes Online marks the occasion by asking a poignant question: Was the nation really at risk?

26 and counting: The number of spirited comments Right on the Left Coast has already received in response to a post about a California bill that would overturn decades-old prohibitions regarding communists and communism in CA public schools

Assessment 101:  A great name for the primer on assessment that Right Wing Nation dishes out

166: The number of gifted Black students who were interviewed in what eduwonkette calls shaky research that claims that Black and Hispanic students do better in school if they have more friends from other races

500:  Education in Texas uses a “Rule of 500” that usually works when in dealing with parents who are protesting a punishment their child has received

510-496-6028: The phone number Jo Scott-Coe says you should call in response to a settlement that will force special education students to pass the state’s exit exam to receive diplomas

The 2008 Election: Something that you’d better not mention on your shirt, as one student from East Texas found out when he tried to wear a John Edwards for President t-shirt… and got suspended!

3600:  The number of people studied over at Sharp Brains in some research which found that social contact is directly correlated with enhanced brain function

$84 million:  The amount of money Ohio spends on “Hope Academies,” which the Columbus Education Association says isn’t paying off

Infinite: The number and types of problems we teachers are expected to solve, and a recent post from the Chancellor’s New Clothes tells us why

 Whew!  After all of my work compiling that, I plan to kick back and relax.  But I certainly won’t relax by drinking anything from Absolut: not after Coach Brown, Matthew Tabor, and History Is Elementary all ranted about an Absolut ad that seemingly promotes the Mexican re-conquest of much of the Southwest United States.

Perhaps a well-earned Diet Coke will have to suffice.  Thanks to everyone who contributed, and my apologies to the 36 other entries that missed the cut!