20070120

Turning Obsessed?

Googling
     teach logic "third grade"
I found the writings of one Rick Garlikov. So far much to like. I didn't imagine my life as an adult and parent being so consumed with elementary education--that's the thought I had while reading "Teaching Effectively: Helping Students Absorb and Assimilate Material". So have I become obsessed?

How to teach without seeming to given that you already sent the child out of house for numerous hours for that exact purpose. The pint-size lawyer never accepts the words of a parent as edict; that is the (monster-)child, we have raised. But as someone put it, "It's so simple to be difficult, but so difficult to be simple". Is there a way to stay (invested) in the public school system if your heart feels as cold as "Adopting a Kidnapper's Creed for Education: No Child Left Behind". I'm too much in agreement and feeling like the other extreme is the only answer.

20070114

2006 MLK tribute @ YouTube

...featuring a medley by Sounds of Blackness.

20070111

Biggest brain-wiggley: Boeing 747 as glider

"brain-wiggley" is my del.icio.us tag for oddities of various proportions. I bumped into this via digg.

20070102

A Clue as to How I Was Forged...Mentally, That Is

Dateline 12.2006:
U Memphis Campus School has been named as one of the top schools in Tennessee
Almost all of its students - 99 percent - scored "proficient" or "advanced" in both reading and math.
When I lived down there, MSU was Memphis State, but now it's gone and matured/re-brandedUniversity of Memphis. Campus School, AKA the elementary laboratory school for the College of Education at the U of Memphis for more than 100 years, is where I received the majority of my elementary education. I was enrolled there at the start of what would have been the 2nd semester of 2nd grade at a more traditional school; but back then, Campus had mixed grades in "communities", and I stayed for the duration through what was 6th grade elsewhere.

And, looking back, I'm certain that my inclusion in C.L.U.E., or Creative Learning in a Unique Environment, in 3rd grade pretty much explains the me that I am as well as the what I expect from schools that J. attends. C.L.U.E.'s guiding methodology I just saw nicely encapsulated as "teach for thinking".

20070101

A Film that I Imagined Making Once Upon a Time

Do some good for a cause close to your heart and invites others by watching this film; two for the price of one.

Inspired by love and concern for his two daughters, and wondering what kind of planet they will inherit, actor and award-winning director Turk Pipkin traveled the world to pose the toughest questions of our time to some of today's greatest minds. The result is Nobelity, a highly acclaimed documentary that explores the crises and possibilities facing the environment, education, economics, family, peace, social justice, and spirituality. Pipkin's odyssey took him across the United States, and overseas to France, England, India, and Kenya. One of the distinguished Nobel laureates he spoke to was Rev. Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize, 1984) who talks about the power of love and forgiveness, and the human capacity to accomplish great things. Pipkin says 'The most moving of the meetings was with Sir Joseph Rotblat, a 96 year old nuclear physicist (Nobel Peace Prize, 1995) who fifty years earlier had joined with Albert Einstein in signing an open letter to the world calling for an end to nuclear proliferation. Sir Joe confided to me that the mission for the remaining days of his life was to fulfill the task that Einstein left to him, and put America and the world back on the track to nuclear disarmament.' ("Event Detail: Nobelity." Artsopolis. 01/01/2007. Artsoplis. 1 Jan 2007 . )

Bumped into details of this courtesy of an advertisment during my listening to a a stream of the December 24, 2006, re-broadcast of Childhood Matters' "Using Stories to Explore the World". Also, disovered a new children's author--Uma Krishnaswami.