Moon Man reveals teachers blogs

Teachers Magazine has three teachers blogs that you might be interested in. I took the liberty to give you a slice of what to expect (in italics) under each link. Have fun. And let me know what you think of them.

It would be most wise to check out:

Certifiable?

Alfie Kohn is mad about tests. And I don�t mean he likes them.

This Saturday at the 2006 Language and Learning Conference at George Mason University sponsored by the Northern Virginia Writing Project, I had the guilty pleasure of hearing the iconoclastic progressive firebrand assault the paradigm under which all of us who teach today in public schools or who buy into any notion of �accountability� (read pols and the public) are complicit. Equal parts Woody Allen, Clarence Darrow, and John Dewey, Kohn waxed eloquent and often hilarious for four hours without notes or powerpoint on the evil effects of a system that valorizes standardized tests, grades and what he called �verbal doggy biscuits� (ever scribble �Good job!� in the margin of a kid�s paper?) above actual learning.


Ready or Not

When my World Civilizations students came in second period, they saw the basket of shells and wanted to know about them. Since they were tenth graders, I asked if they could remember the imagery of sonnets from ninth grade English. They could, and seemed to like the idea of comparing Juliet to the seashell. They asked if they could have a shell, too. Since they were having a test, I offered each one shell to hold as a �good luck charm�. Every student took one. And said thank you.

Another teacher asked me later what I was doing with seashells. She�d heard students talking about it. So I think it was a good lesson. If students are talking about a class, they are thinking.


Blogboard

New york-based teacher writingsam is forced to ponder the changing mores of students when, during a small-group writing workshop, one of her 4th graders nonchalantly asks her, �Are you a virgin?�

And the craziest part about it, was that the three students [in the workshop] didn't even respond, didn't even look up from their work, just continued on with correcting the paragraphs I had edited. It was almost as if asking your teacher if she's a virgin is equivalent to asking your teacher if she has a pencil.

As one of my coworkers always says, I wish my kids still had cooties. Instead, they're going to a school-hosted seminar with their parents about HIV/AIDS, nonchalantly asking their teachers if they're virgins, and bringing condoms to school. In the fourth grade.