The Education Carnival-Edition 96

Welcome to the 96th Carnival of Education! I’m honored to host this edition and have enjoyed the experience. Since this was my first time to host I decided I would keep my presentation fairly simple. Perhaps I’ll get a little more elaborate the next time. Submissions are arranged acccording to curriculum and topic area in no particular ranking order.

There is something here for everyone so enjoy as the midway is now open…..

Social Studies

Henry Cate of Why Homeschool fame has found an interesting way to study political campaigns over the last fifty years. In this post titled Great Resource for Learning History he discusses this websource all educators would be proud to have on their “favorites”.

I’m offering up a mysterious picture here in my ongoing series of Wordless Wednesdays. I post a historical image of some type and you can try to guess what you think it is. I will post an explantion of the image by Friday of each week.

Digitalnative advises while The Atlantic magazine decided to list the Top 100 most influential figures in American history, they forgot to provide any details. So, this Digital Native decided to bring the list into the 21st Century. Here, you'll find a list of the Top 100 with a link to Wikipedia. It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like…..

Darren at Right on the Left Coast wants us to take a look at calendar. Go on….you won’t be disappointed. You can see it in his post titled School Calendar

Students Do and Say the Darndest Things

NYC Educator states, “Smart kids can trick you and get away with murder, however I think old age and treachery always overcomes youth and enthusiasm (in the end).”
Intriguing, huh? Find out what he’s talking about in his post titled Four Girls.

Carol, The Median Sib, has a whole different spin on the story that goes “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue….” Now, what were the names of those ships again? Find out here.

This section probably should be corrected to say students and “parents” do and say the darndest things……Ms. Cornelius shares a story regarding expulsion for students who planned a fight at school titled Maybe the Principal Didn't Say "I REALLY Mean It"

Testing, Narrowing the Achievement Gap, and Meeting AYP

What would you do if 2007 was looming ahead and you still had not received your 2006 test scores? Alexander Russo from This Week in Education offers More Testing SNAFU Stories. Receiving them in May or the following January the results are the same…..backflips and high-fives or wailing and gnashing of teeth!

Alvaro at Sharp Brains provides Student Achievement Gap, Stress, and Self-Regulation and you can give your brain a work out and illuminate how your brain works at the same time with A Well-Deserved Break: Top 10 Brain Teasers

Guest blogger, Alan Bonsteel, M.D. at Edspresso discusses closing the achievement gap in his post titled Closing In on Closing the Black/White Educational Achievement Gap. He wonders if the Holy Grail has been obtained.

AYP, AYP, AYP, AYP…..is this some strange motivation cheer? I think not! Those three little letters either cause your administrators to rub their hands together with glee, or they become whip cracking authors of memos instituting policy change after policy change in attempt to fix whatever it is that’s broke. Absences are such an important part of making AYP, but an policy for truant students is only as good as the courts in your district. If they aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to get students to school it’s hopeless. In an excellent post entitled My Letter to Staff IB who authors Three Standard Deviations to the Left questions how students manage to pass even thought they aren’t in class.

Matt Johnston of Going to the Mat fame provides Wizard of Oz Diplomas which also takes a look at passing students along for the sake of passing them along.

Perhaps we could achieve some of the goals of NCLB if ALL of our students had the buildings they deserved. Ed at AFT has posted Build It Up at NCLB: Let's Get It Right. Go find out the sad state of conditions for some teachers and students as well as view the AFT report “Building Minds and Minding Buildings”.

Dan McDowell has posted My Castle over at A History Teacher. He furthers the conversation regarding building conditions and gives us a personal glimpse of HIS castle including a picture.

Self-Improvement

As a part-time Language Arts teacher I find it interesting to see how others advise writers. Lucas McDonnell provides a short article on how to become a better writer through using what you already know titled Write What You Already Know: 7 Effective Tips for Writers

With the New Year fast approaching you can’t help but begin thinking about resolutions. A little reflection and self-improvement goes along way. Steven Aitchison doesn’t mince words as he discusses Self-Discipline, Willpower, and Motivation at his blog titled Change Your Thoughts.

Educational Philosophy

Who said, “Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power”? Brad Hoge of HUNblog clues us in on who said it plus gives us some random thoughts regarding Kant on Constructivism.

Tammy over at Life Without School provides her philosphy of homeschooling in Zen and the Art of Homeschooling.

The Bluedorns discuss The Trivium Pursuit in a post titled Classical Q and A

Do you know who John Taylor Gatto is? John at Pick the Brain clues us in with his post A Teacher's Essay on the Public Education System.

Professional Issues

Every wonder why we have so few male teachers? Strausser over at A Teacher's Perspective states he has the answer. He verbalized his viewpoints recently in an interview for a magazine article. I hope he let’s all of us know soon which magazine we need to pick up! His post titled Shortage of Male Teachers provides us with a great preview of his responses.

In this post titled True Mr. NcNamar of The Daily Grind states he wants to give parents exactly what they want. After examining his proposal I’m all for it. Where do I go to sign the petition?

David Parker teaches college just up the road from me and now he’s joined the blogosphere. His blog titled Another History Blog is just a few days old. He gives some great insight into teacher evaluations with his post titled Beauty In the Classroom. Go welcome this new blogger!

This edition of the Education Carnival has two views regarding an educator’s autonomy regarding choosing curriculum sources we use with students.

What makes a resource appropriate or inappropriate for student use? Who makes that decision? What control do we as educators have? Matt Cheney at The Quarterly Conversation gives us his point of view in his post titled appropriately What Is Appropriate?

I don’t know about you…but blogging helps me think through an issue especially when I’m upset about something. Apparently I’m not alone. In her post titled Justification Aquiram of Teaching in the Twenty-First Century fame continues a discussion from an earlier post involving a recent situtuation where her choice to use a particular novel study with her students was questioned.

Now here’s a choice in curriculum I’m not so sure about….In his post titled The School of Chaos our esteemed EdWonk advises about the curriculum at the Brooklyn Free School.

“Bald-faced charter school hostility” is how Ryan Boots describes the attitude of one public school coach towards charters in general. Click on over and read Refusing to Play Charter Schools at Edspresso.

What is is an education carnival without a post or two from Mamacita at Scheiss Weekly? In her heartfelt post titled The Text Message I Expected But Didn't Want she gives a wonderful tribute to a friend and teacher. On a lighter note Mamacita explains just how much she loves her job in Then and Now: My Working Life

Like Mamacita, Dr. Homeslice is also in mourning for someone he admired. He has changed the background color of his blog to indicate he is Mourning Mooney . Click on over and discover who Dr. Homeslice admired so much.

Strategies to Help Students Succeed

Russ Egan over at The Student Help Forum offers us practical advice to any student writing a science report in his post How to Write Up a Science Report for High School

Do you know what problem posing is? Last year my team at school had a wonder in-service (yes, some are beneficial) on this very issue. Mister Teacher has posted a fine example of what problem posing is. Go take a look at what his students provided when they posed a few problems in his post Houston, We Have a Word Problem. I just love that title!

It’s never too late to learn as Me-Ander provides a great ABC lesson for her Seniors in a post titled Teaching the ABCs

Ms. SuperScience states a simple reason why some students fail in her post titled You know it's going to be a long day when...

Graduate School and Online Education

Through her own online education experience The Science Goddess examines the effect online courses may have on public education in her post Brick and Mortar Dinosaurs . She includes some interesting facts and number regarding this growing trend.

Mr. Lawrence was surprised when he encountered some major “tudes” as well as Whining In Graduate School. It would appear he had a quick refresher course in negative reinforcement.

Have you wondered which schools are The 25 Best Colleges for Nerds? Check out Online University Lowdown.

David E. discusses immigrants and jobs heading overseas in his post titled Immigrants Taking Jobs? Jobs Are Going Overseas.

Well, we began with Social Studies and we’ll end with it too……

Constitutional Issues

The Supreme Court entertained arguments on Monday regarding the Seattle and Louisville busing cases. Joanne Jacobs weighs in with her post Who Goes Where.

Didn't Tinker v. Des Moines Settle This? That’s what Greg is asking over at Rhymes With Right in his post regarding free speech and what students may wear and what they can’t wear. Go state YOUR opinion.

There you have it….the 96th Education Carnival. Thanks for visiting History Is Elementary and all of our worthy participants.

Next Week's Midway: The Carnival comes home to The Education Wonks. The deadline for submissions is: 8:00 PM (Eastern) 5:00 PM (Pacific) Tuesday, December 12. Submissions may be sent to: owlshome [at] earthlink [dot] net . Contributers may also use Blog Carnival's handy submission form: here.

The Midway should open Wednesday morning.

See the Education Carnival archives here.