education

Racing Requires Winners and Losers

by Jose 08.24.2010

On face value, getting money for education from the government is awesome. As a left-leaning voter (with no party), I should celebrate the government’s intervention in boosting the value of our schools most in-need. I should be happy that within the last few months, New York State has garnered at least 520 million dollars in [...]

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The Token’s Worth More Than You Bargained For

by Jose 08.12.2010

My favorite part about the GE Futures in Education Conference in Orlando wasn’t the wonderful 85+ degree weather, the beautiful accommodations (including free wi-fi), or even the wonderful speakers ranging from Jon Saphier and Robert Marzano to Ron Ferguson and David Jackson. It was my eclectic crew of math and science teachers who I broke [...]

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What Schools Can Learn From Gordon Ramsay

by Jose 08.10.2010

I have to admit that my experiments in cooking have been anywhere from spectacularly surprising to absolutely vacuous. I’m great with a pair of eggs and a bowl of cereal, and have made a mean salad once. Otherwise, my rice could have stuck to the ceiling (because it didn’t stick to our stomachs) and anything [...]

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Rest Elbows on Table, Insert Chin Into Hands (Pick Your Head Up Afterwards)

by Jose 08.04.2010

This is the reason I don’t like reading the papers in NYC. They’re either filled with information I’ve already read, information that’s misinformation, or information I just shake my head at. This time around, it was the third. And I didn’t even have my usual sources of news to inform me immediately of Sunday’s NY [...]

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Karma Police (Jealousy Is A Crime)

by Jose 07.19.2010

Today, I’m at the beautiful Portofino Hotel for the second year in a row for the GE Conference, where I just heard Robert Marzano (The Art and Science of Teaching) speaking to us about the marrow of this skeleton we call “teaching.” I read his work and wasn’t particularly interested since I’ve heard much of [...]

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Because Ed-Techies Need To Hear This

by Jose 07.16.2010

What’s the difference between ed-tech and real education? You. Last night, I was having a conversation with an educator who worked at a school that’s fully integrated with computers and other technologies. He appreciated the experience and he knows the whole world watched this school with fervor, wondering the possibilities of this type of school. [...]

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If You Smelt It, You Probably Dealt It

by Jose 06.29.2010

I don’t like telling people the good, honest truth all the time. I prefer a more diplomatic truth where the recipient has some chance of getting better. No, really. One of my friends says that I can be so candid at times, I have to put a cap on it in the form of “I [...]

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With Your Hearts Wide Open

by Jose 06.28.2010

Last night, and over the last few weekends, I’d been working on a piece (of poetry) for my students, one that I hope they’d remember, that would capture the memories we had for so long. I couldn’t come up with anything appropriate until last night. I couldn’t have it be too sad or too corny, [...]

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On Making Sense of One’s World Through Inference

by Jose 06.15.2010

Two weeks ago, I had the strangest dream where I was back in college on a panel in the midst of a few familiar people, one of whom I disliked for the majority of my organizational career. I remember her spouting some nonsense about the so-called Black Agenda and what we “need to be doing” [...]

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No, I Don’t Miss You Now

by Jose 06.14.2010

With only two weeks left, many of my 8th graders have been asking me whether I’m going to miss them. Missing them implies that they’ve actually left my presence for more than a week. Missing them implies that my job has gone from simple math teacher / coach / data specialist / mentor to teacher [...]

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