Books I finished reading (or rereading) in March 2024… Never Enough, Jennifer Breheny Wallace (education) The Grand Conspiracy, J. N. Chaney & Terry Mixon (science fiction) Shield of Humanity, J. N. Chaney & Terry Mixon (science fiction) Fog of War, J. N. Chaney & Terry Mixon (science fiction) Ships of the Line, J. N. Chaney & Terry Mixon (science fiction) Operation Liberty, J. N. Chaney & Terry Mixon (science fiction) Hope you’re reading something fun too! Related Posts Books I read in February 2024 NECC – My adventures with Horse & Hound magazine: Florida Virtual ..read more

Just leaving this graph here for folks who think that cyberbullying is a bigger scourge than in-person bullying in schools (because we often tend to demonize technology)… These data are from NCES Report 2024-109, Student Reports of Bullying: Results From the 2022 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey [Table 2.1], and are consistent with past research on this topic. About 1 in 5 students (19%) in grades 6 through 12 reported being bullied during the 2021-2022 school year [Table 1.1], despite prevalent security measures. For example, the vast majority of bullied stu ..read more

Books I finished reading (or rereading) in February 2024… The Baseball 100, Joe Posnanski (baseball) Alias Emma, Ava Glass (thriller) 1000 Ultimate Adventures, Lonely Planet (travel) The Blade Itself, Joe Abercrombie (fantasy) Before They Are Hanged, Joe Abercrombie (fantasy) Bowlful, Norman Musa (cookbook) The Last Hunter, J. N. Chaney & Terry Mixon (science fiction) Bonds of Blood, J. N. Chaney & Terry Mixon (science fiction) Alpha Strike, J. N. Chaney & Terry Mixon (science fiction) The Enemy Revealed, J. N. Chaney & Terry Mixon (science fiction) Command Authority, J ..read more

I had the honor of being the featured interview in the Winter 2024 issue of K-12 EdTech Magazine. Here are a couple of quotes from the article: Keep asking the question, technology for the purpose of what? How you answer that question depends on your learning model. If your learning model is about teachers transmitting low-level knowledge with students regurgitating back factual recall, then your technology adoption and decision-making will revolve around that learning model. AND I think there’s a huge difference between viewing the student computer as a curriculum and content delivery devi ..read more

[I should have written this post a month ago but better late than never…] I read some great (and not so great) books in 2023! Here are my top few (and why)… My top book for 2023 was actually first published in… 1964! I’ve been sharing some quotes from How Children Fail by John Holt (and need to share some more). There is a reason that this book is an all-time education classic. I visited at least 50 deeper learning schools last year. As I drove around the country and talked with educators, nothing that I read last year resonated with me more than How Children Fail. Holt did a phenomenal job o ..read more

Books I finished reading (or rereading) in January 2024… Ultimate Travel, Lonely Planet (travel) The Helsinki Affair, Anna Pitoniak (thriller) Heat Lightning, John Sandford (thriller) Embers of War, Gareth Powell (science fiction) Fleet of Knives, Gareth Powell (science fiction) The Toll, Neal Shusterman (science fiction) Gleanings, Neal Shusterman (science fiction) Crucible of Fortune, Andy Peloquin (fantasy) Storm of Chaos, Andy Peloquin (fantasy) Secrets of Blood, Andy Peloquin (fantasy) Ascension of Death, Andy Peloquin (fantasy) Eleventh Cycle, Kian Ardalan (fantasy) Hope you’re reading ..read more

I ran across this working paper from Dr. David Autor, a labor economist at MIT: Autor, D., Chin, C., Salomons, A., & Seegmiller, B. (2023). New frontiers: The origins and content of new work, 1940-2018. Quarterly Journal of Economics (forthcoming). Autor et al. defined new work as “the introduction of new job tasks or job categories requiring specialized human expertise” (p. 1). In other words, in which occupational sectors are new tasks, work, and jobs emerging / declining, and for whom? Here is an informative chart from page A13 of the Appendix (page 73 of the PDF): [download a larger ..read more

I’m going to leave these screenshots here so I don’t forget them… [sigh] Text is underneath each one. ME: It would be a terrible, terrible thing if students ever got to learn about things THEY wanted, not just what WE wanted? THEM: Adult discernment and responsibility doesn’t end at the schoolhouse door. We decide what children eat and wear, when they sleep and wake, and dictate how they care for themselves without a second thought. But somehow, adult care and judgment becomes tyranny in the classroom? ME: Do you think that students should never, ever have any say or choice in what they get t ..read more

I participated in a Twitter conversation yesterday that bounced around a bit. I believe that most of the folks I conversed with were from the United Kingdom. I also believe that many of them were in favor of what we might call ‘strict discipline’ in schools. One of the advantages of having a blog is that I am able to write about topics in ways that may be less possible over on Twitter. So with a thank you to my conversation partners in yesterday’s discussion, I’m going to dive right in… I made two claims yesterday that I thought were uncontroversial but apparently were. The first was that: 1 ..read more

Books I finished reading (or rereading) in December 2023… The Power of Moments, Chip Heath & Dan Heath (leadership) Atomic Habits, James Clear (productivity) In the Spirit of the Studio, Lella Gandini, Lynne Hill, Louise Cadwell, and Charles Schwall (education) Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich (education) Frontera, Julio Anta & Jacoby Salcedo (graphic novel) Thunderhead, Neal Shusterman (science fiction) The Kaiju Preservation Society, John Scalzi (science fiction) The Trials of Ashmount, John Palladino (fantasy) Buzzard’s Bowl, John Palladino (fantasy) Fire and Song, Bryce O’Connor ..read more