Tuesday Open Thread
Really interesting photography series on children and their toys. Might be interesting to ask your child if you were taking the picture with them in it, what toys would surround them?
Update: I just learned that Superintendent Banda had a death in the family and is out on bereavement leave until Friday. Naturally this means he will not be at Wednesday's Board meeting. Our sympathies to the Superintendent and his family.
Also new, from the West Seattle blog comes the notion that because we had no snow days this school year, the last day of school is likely to be June 14th. That's one of the earliest end dates I can remember in a long time.
What's on your mind?
Update: I just learned that Superintendent Banda had a death in the family and is out on bereavement leave until Friday. Naturally this means he will not be at Wednesday's Board meeting. Our sympathies to the Superintendent and his family.
Also new, from the West Seattle blog comes the notion that because we had no snow days this school year, the last day of school is likely to be June 14th. That's one of the earliest end dates I can remember in a long time.
What's on your mind?
Comments
Solvay Girl
In Steubenville and in Seattle, football players have status. We can't be smug, it wasn't long ago that a developmentally delayed student was raped in a high school building by a member of the football team and although it had been reported to the principal, relatives of the victim were the ones who contacted police.
Has emphasis on wealth & power gotten us to where we want to go?
Perhaps we should look closer at countries we envy.
Yet one of the most significant things Sahlberg said passed practically unnoticed. "Oh," he mentioned at one point, "and there are no private schools in Finland."
This notion may seem difficult for an American to digest, but it's true. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
Two Words
Jet, ah Steubenville, we may have a discussion about that.
Maybe it would keep them from balancing on two legs all of the time! I also like the slanted desktop as described (though, in our experience, SPS seems to have lots of two or three seater tables, not desks.)
"Conservative" attitudes like yours are why we aren't having that conversation, though. It's too bad, because it's the path that benefits most of the communities that the conservatives claim to support.
As well, the COMPLETELY different population, i.e. homogenous, would make it difficult if not impossible, to replicate here. Finland schools don't have 100 languages in one neighborhood. The country doesn't have a relatively recent history of slavery for one of the most underserved populations there. There is not, by the very make-up of the country, as much of a chasm between the haves and have-nots. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
If we're going to discuss Finland and what's great about it, we should also be honest about how much we'd need to change here to make it possible in any form even close to what they have.
Two Words
-Apples&Oranges
Removing Courageous Conversations from Center School’s race and gender course is outrageous
Update: I just learned that Superintendent Banda had a death in the family and is out on bereavement leave until Friday. Naturally this means he will not be at Wednesday's Board meeting. Our sympathies to the Superintendent and his family.