The Core Knowledge Blog

The Core Knowledge Blog is pleased to host the 188th edition of Carnival of Education!  A large and diverse cohort of edubloggers is on hand to offer the week’s best thinking and writing.   It’s a special event, but it’s still a school day, so we will be following our regular class schedule and the Core Knowledge curriculum.

History, Geography and Social Studies

Should a free education be unconditional? Tweenteacher asks, “If a child is showing early signs of being a threat to himself, to others, or simply in serious need of help that cannot be provided in a mainstream setting, should there not be regulations that designate that a parent, seek help for that child as a condition of their free education?”

To form strong school communities we need to champion clear values and virtues. The Marines, the Mormons and even the Hell’s Angels–and any other group that has members who really feel they belong–are clear about what they are about. That’s what Michael Umphrey is thinking about as he listens to a school consultant prattle on about “belonging” at The Good Place.

What’s the difference between teaching in Quebec and Teaching in Alberta?  About $30,000 according to Teacher Pay Scale Across Canada posted at Nucleus Learning.

California’s best and worst students “are likely to speak English as a second language,” writes Joanne Jacobs.  They either become bilingual superstars or Jose Average.

Chanman at Buckhorn Road continues to be amused at the education wonks “who just can’t seem to figure out why an achievement gap exists.”

What can we learn from teachers of a century ago?  Plenty.  Jon Ingram presents Learning from the past posted at Lessons Taught; Lessons Learnt.

Mark Montgomery presents Affirmative Action for Boys: The Moral Equivalent to Affirmative Action for Blacks and Latinos? at Great College Advice.

larry Ferlazzo presents The Best Resources For Hispanic Heritage Month posted at Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day….

Homeschooled 18-year-old Miss Amanda wonders why she would spend “13 years of my life being homeschooled, being kept away from the influence of the public school system, only to put myself into their higher education public school?”

100 Free Online Ivy League Courses you can take just for fun? Sounds too good to be true, but Alisa Miller at EduK8 says it’s true.

Language Arts

Stories and Speeches

Charlene has committed what would be considered to be criminal offences in the adult world, writes Old Andrew at Scenes From the Battleground. Yet she is seen as a perfectly suitable candidate to learn a subject she has actively resisted learning for several years, in an institution she has continually harmed.

What would be so bad about having kids wear uniforms? asks NYC Educator.  “They’re simple, they’d help us to identify intruders, and they look comfortable. Why should charters be able to require uniforms but not us?” Buen idea.

Why is it that kids have such a hard time copying things word for word or answering questions out of a book onto a separate sheet of paper? asks Mister Teacher at Learn Me Good.

Teacher Pat of Successful Teaching hopes to have the courage to do the right thing instead of the thing that will cause the least amount of controversy in One Bold Bird.

It’s Sweetheart Girl vs. Pinball Boy.  And it’s no contest.  Mrs. Bluebird presents The Premier Paper Passer posted at Bluebird’s Classroom. 

Poetry

“A good poem is a work of art, and the teacher who deliberately, for whatever reason, turns that art into drudgery will have to account to heaven for that sin,” opines Mamacita at Scheiss Weekly.  “Textbook editors who put bad poetry in a child’s textbook will be sorry, too.”

Limericks and haikus about things you’re no good at?  See Not So Artful At Athletics posted at MAD KANE’S HUMOR BLOG.

A person who demonstrates fidelity is loyal, consistent, committed, writes Teacher in a Strange Land’s Nancy Flanagan.  But when “fidelity coaches” are provided to schools purchasing whole-school reform packages, they’re not urging teachers to be committed to their students. They’re monitoring teachers’ willingness to dependably follow an agenda.

Reading

Crissy at Preschool Finder Blog taught Kindergarten for 8 years and kids left her class reading.  “How did I do that?  That question still puzzles me.  All we did was read, play with magnets, point to words, sing….all of these activities lay the foundation for becoming a reader.”

There are inherent difficulties being a male teacher in the early grades.  J.M. Holland at Lead from the Start hasn’t had a lot of problems with parents and issues of trust, “but I have had my share.”

PicktheBrain presents Reader’s Delight: A Search Engine for Free Online Books posted at Ace Online Schools.

Music and Fine Arts

D.B. Williams defends the fine and performing arts in education at An Outsiders’ Perspective.  “Art stimulates a child’s cognitive and affective domains, as well as their motor skills, which leads to learning, discovery, creativity and motivation,” he writes.

Photographing over 1,700 students convinces Carol Richtsmeier of Bellringers that organization is an overrated virtue.   But don’t try telling that to Ms. Teacher.  Disorganization is costing her the first two weeks of the school year.  Can I Teach Now? she asks.

It’s awesome to see a six year old’s bedroom decked out with pirate decor or ballerina themes, but Mathew Needleman isn’t sure classroom “themes” do much toward supporting the curriculum being taught in the rooms in which they are used.  Classroom Themes: Realia or Wallpaper is posted at Creating Lifelong Learners.

Mathematics

What if we went the Jack Welch route and fired the bottom ten percent of all teachers every year?  We would have to fire 320,000 teachers per year, that’s what.  That won’t work so Dave Saba offers Fixing Teacher Quality instead at Finding Excellent Teachers.

The idea that teachers should be held accountable for increasing “measured individual student learning rates” seems obvious, right?  But it ain’t ever that easy, writes Bill Ferriter at The Tempered Radical.

Add Travis A. Wittwer’s name to the list of teachers who don’t want to pay–sorry, incentivize–students with bribes rewards for doing well in school.  GRADE$$$ and TE$$$T $$$CORE$$$ is posted at Stories from School: Practice meets Policy.

It’s time to bring the college rankings business into the new millennium and smash the forest-destroying furry-animal-killing monopoly that is U.S. News, says Bob O’Hara.  He offers The Google College Rankings at The Collegiate Way.

Science

Charles Murray is not the first to make an intellectual determinism argument, and he won’t be the last. But neither science nor history is really on his side, writes Karin Chenoweth at Britannica Blog.

Junk science and common misconceptions and misrepresentations of science in the media and in public opinion, courtesy of Irradiatus who presents Current Headline News Useful for Freshman College Science Courses posted at biochemicalsoul.com.

Professional Learning Communities have jumped the shark, says The Science Goddess at What It’s Like on the Inside.

Jeremy Burman puts arguments against the use of drugs to treat children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD in context at Advances in the History of Psychology. 

Chaos, entropy, the laws of thermodynamics, and the New York City Department of Education combine a la Tom Stoppard as Woodlass presents A failed chancellorship, in scientific terms posted at Under Assault: Teaching in NYC.

Steve Spangler features Favorite Halloween Science Demos is posted at Steve Spangler’s Blog.

Next week’s Carnival will be hosted by Thomas J. West Music.  Class dismissed!