Teens and Tweens Special on Questionland

Questionland is doing a special week dedicated to parenting teens and tweens.

They will have a bunch of experts including a high school vice principal, safety experts, some folks from a parent-teen communication group and the Seattle librarian who handles teen fiction.

The link is http://questionland.com/topics/seattle-teens-tweens

Comments

seattle citizen said…
Speaking of media,
The New York Times Sunday quarterly education supplement had this week an article, Ed Schools’ Pedagogical Puzzle, about some colleges of education and how they are coming out with TFA-style, direct instruction programs, online etc, in order to teach just pedagogy, NO theory. Scary article, but with some good points about teaching a bit more classroom instruction techniques (but at the exclusion of background theory)

Some choice scary quotes:
"Teacher U was founded by leaders from three prominent charter school chains — Achievement First, Uncommon Schools and KIPP"

and, at another new, Reform-ish teacher college, Relay,
"There will be no courses at the Relay Graduate School of Education...no campus...no lectures...Relay uses fiery terms to describe its mission, promising to train schoolteachers in a way that 'explodes the traditional, course-based paradigm that has been adopted by traditional schools of education over the past century.' Norman Atkins, the founder of a network of charter schools and the president of Relay, talks about his program as being beyond ideology, a word he believes has a negative connotation. [He wants to] bring about a future in which teachers and schools use instructional techniques that are known to work and are held accountable for student performance, two core tenets of Relay...[At a class meeting of Relay]there were no books out, though one young man consulted “The 10-Day M.B.A.” during breaks. Instead, the students followed along on what the school calls “interactive handouts,” worksheets that provide exercises to accompany their teacher’s PowerPoint presentation.
The morning’s subject was “Right Is Right,” a technique in which teachers learn to hold out until their students give them answers that are 100 percent accurate. It is the second of 49 strategies cataloged in “Teach Like a Champion,” a 2010 book by Doug Lemov, a teacher and principal who founded the Uncommon Schools charter school with Mr. Atkins. Mr. Lemov’s work is such a backbone of instruction at Teacher U, students say, that he has near-guru status there, as does Dave Levin, a founder of the KIPP charter schools, and Julie Jackson, former principal of North Star Academy in Newark."

Eeek! Save us from a lack of theory, "accountability" via skill in teaching to tests, and teacher-prep schools founded by charter executives...
7/26/11, 11:07 AM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Speaking of teens,here's a text interchange between a teen on the island in Norway where the shootings took place and her mom. Both remained pretty calm even as things got grim. May this never happen to any of us or or children.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14287822
7/26/11, 11:45 AM
seattle citizen said…
Thanks for sharing that, Melissa. My heart goes out toe everyone over there.

These lines from the transcript you linked to struck me as very sweet:

Julie
I love you even if I still misbehave from time to time....
And I'm not panicking even if I'm shit scared.
Mum
I know that my darling. We love you too very much
7/26/11, 11:57 AM
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