This is a topic and interview that you may find interesting. Do you accept their premise and conclusions? Emily Hanford reveals how America’s educators adopted a flawed system for teaching reading to kids—and, as a result, completely failed them. The article appeared in The Free Press: Why 65 Percent of Fourth Graders Can’t Really Read (thefp.com) Many parents saw America’s public education system crumble under the weight of the pandemic. Stringent policies—including school closures that went on far too long, and ineffective Zoom school for kindergarteners—had devastating effects that we are only just beginning to understand. But, as with so many problems during the pandemic, COVID … [Read more...]
‘Telepresence’ robots are making virtual school feel a little more like real school
Todays article comes from The Washington Post and Jennifer Davis. She explores technology and robots introduced during the pandemic and the impact on K-12 education. You'll either love it or it will scare the ........ out of you. It has been a year full of the unexpected for families who have had to quickly adjust to masks, quarantines and virtual and hybrid learning, all thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. For Eliza Engel and her son Thomas McKnight, one of the surprises 2020 has brought is that the sixth-grader at Burgundy Farm Country Day School in Alexandria, Va., now attends class with the help of a robot. “It’s really, truly amazing, because it looks like … [Read more...]
Deepfake teachers & technology: the future of K-12 public education?
Ready to glimpse the future of K-12 public education? Put your walking shoes on and check your skepticism at the door and enter the looking glass with me... The future of K-12 public education is...Deepfake teachers. First what the heck is "deepfake"? Definition: "an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said" "Deepfake (a portmanteau of "deep learning" and "fake") is a technique for human image synthesis based on artificial intelligence(A.I). It is used to combine and superimpose (Photoshop/Edit) existing images and videos onto source images or videos using a … [Read more...]
Virtual Teachers: The future of K-12 education
Covid has led a number of school districts and states to move to an on-line "virtual learning" environment. In this model the students do NOT go to school physically. Instead they stay at home and use a computer and internet access to be a member of a "virtual classroom". Teachers can see the students and the students can see the teacher. Lessons and tests are done on-line. Depending on the school district, students may attend daily or several times a week for period ranging up to 2-3 hours. This starts to mimic other on-line learning sources that have been in place for a number of years (We have shared two articles you may want to review: https://swweducation.org?p=6453 and … [Read more...]
K-12: Faking It
If you've followed this blog you've read artricles talking about the scam's foisted on students via public schools. Fads. Today we bring you an article by Bruce Deitrick Price published in American Thinker. It takes a couple of minutes to read but raises some of the same issues we've called out. Welcome to Wonderland. That's the code name for the fake houses and landscapes built to hide California's airplane factories circa 1942. Japanese bombers were expected at any moment. This anticipation was the theme of Steven Spielberg's 1979 movie titled 1941. The film, starring John Belushi, was too slapstick to convey California's utter panic. People truly believed they saw Zeroes … [Read more...]
5 Reasons teaching is NOT a profession
This article comes to us from a teacher. Dr. Ernest J. Zarra III, PhD at his blog: www.erniezarra.com He's a teacher. He loves education. He tells us why teaching is NOT a profession and gives us "5" reasons. Years and years ago, a professor looked at me with that certain look. I interpreted the look as displeasure. He explained it was a look of perplexity. "Zarra," he said, "Why don't you go into the teaching profession?" I thought to myself, would I have to develop confusing facial expressions in the process? I replied to the professor with two responses. The first response was "I don't want to work with kids." The second response was "I wouldn't know what to say or … [Read more...]
Sexual Health Education – FLASH – Overview – Part 1/5
This is going to be a multi-part article given the complexity, continuousness and "emotional" nature of the material. We will attempt to provide links and documents that will help you, the reader, gain an understanding of what FLASH is and what students will be "educated" about in Elementary; Middle; High School and Special Education. This article will focus on the high level information. We will devote an article to each of the four (4) educational areas. Washington State requires that three (3) topics on sex be taught: STDs, HIV, and Consent. That's it - no other sexual topics are required. Anything beyond is at the discretion of the school district and local school board. Here is a … [Read more...]
Chronicles of Narnia & Writing Skills
This story is inspired by an article that ran at Intellectual Takeout. Question: What percent of todays 8th to 12th grade students are proficient at writing? Answer is....~27% C.S. Lewis is recognized as the writer of The Chronicles of Narnia along with a number of other books. The story goes that he received a letter from a young girl with some examples of her writing asking for his comments. In his praise he offered some five (5) suggestions: 1) Strive for Clarity “Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure y[ou]r sentence couldn’t mean anything else.” 2. Use Plain and Direct Language “Always prefer the plain direct word to … [Read more...]
10 reasons to teach cursive handwriting
You are probably aware that most schools no longer teach cursive handwriting. Why? Because computers and technology don't need it. Because it's "old world". Because it's not "21st Century". Well we came across a list of 10 reasons why teaching cursive is GOOD. Take a read. If you agree then go to your local school and demand they return to teaching cursive. If you are persistent (and share this list) they will make the change. You are an agent of change...will you take on the task? Why Learn Cursive? Top 10 Reasons to Learn Cursive Iris Hatfield, Handwriting Coach Learning cursive offers an incredible array of well-documented benefits. Below are ten reasons all children … [Read more...]
Did Aldous Huxley predict the future of education in “Brave New World”?
Some say that science fiction writers predict the future...or is it the the future mimics the writers? In an article at Intellectualtakeout John Miltimore posits that Huxley foresaw the future and explains why. In a nutshell John suggests that instead of building virtue and character and training students in the basic skills they need in life education has shifted to "value driven" and "social justice". Instead of learning literature, history, art, logic, and philosophy—those are reserved for the rulers of this dystopia—pupils are indoctrinated with class-consciousness and banal slogans: “Everyone belongs to everybody.” Are today's schools primarily teaching … [Read more...]
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