Envy, lust, greed, complusory education

Is forced education–and the consequential imprisonment of children–a good thing or a bad thing?
The author of an interesting article over at Psychology Today says it’s bad thing. Peter Gray of the Freedom to Learn: The Roles of Play and Curiosity as Foundations for Learning blog suggests that perhaps we could do school differently if we [...]

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“Video games are the future in education”

National Public Radio recently posted an interview between Will Wright and Dr. E. O. Wilson.
Wilson is professor emeritus at Harvard University and biologist, is a two-time Pulitzer-winning ant expert who helped develop theories of island biogeography, chemical ecology, and sociobiology. A leader in the modern environmental movement, Wilson has devoted his life to understanding how [...]

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Tip of the Week – Red Light, Green Light!

Create a classroom set of laminated green, yellow and red cards. The set could be as small as traditional playing cards or as large as you want. (Personally, I would probably make them monster size just for fun!)
How to use them?

Hand them out to students before a large group discussion and periodically call for a [...]

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Your rules for teaching history? Part II

Back in 2002, Lee Formwalt put together a great list of what he called “Seven Rules for Effective History Teaching or Bringing Life to the History Class.” I enjoyed it so much that I buried it deep in the bottom drawer of my file cabinet.
During a recent and massive desk reclamation project, I ran across [...]

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Your right to boredom management

Apparently some of us in the office have accumulated too much stuff over the last few years. This morning the boss ordered everyone to go through book shelves and file cabinets in an effort to spruce up the place. We’re to throw out anything not up-to-date or being used.
As part of the process, I ran [...]

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