THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

How to Create Nonreaders

Why Johnnie and Jane don't like to read . . . and what to do about it
Alfie Kohn Delivers a Powerful Essay About MOTIVATION & Learning
Would You Hire Your Own Kids? 7 Skills Schools Should Be Teaching Them
The Day I Abolished Grading
Parents: Are we sabotaging our own kids' math "ability"?
Entrepreneurs: Pirates in the Arena

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . .
The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World's Most Surprising School System
Ten To-Do's for Young People to Consider

#1 - Build a "Personal Board of Directors"
EcoTherapy: "You're gonna look at some trees" - Video :)

Truth in Humor ---- It's come to this, folks

RIFFING GOOD STORIES

Shaping Serendipity for Learning: Conversations with John Seely Brown

"Conventional wisdom holds that different people learn in different ways. Something is missing from that idea, however, so we offer a corollary: Different people, when presented with exactly the same information in exactly the same way, will learn different things." - John Seely Brown Read more

Seven Questions: Is your child a recipe-follower or a real learner?

"It may help to have in our minds a picture of what we mean by understanding . . . "-John Holt, Why Children Fail, p. 177by C.J. WesterbergI recently had a loooong conversation with a parent about whether his child... Read more

Tom Friedman: Think Like an Immigrant

Five Ways to Succeed in Life and Work Read more

Is This The Best High School in America?

WATCH: How These Six Minutes May Change Your Idea of Innovative Education (dramatically). Phillips Exeter, Harvard Westlake & Lawrenceville may be taking notes from this charter school leading the next wave. Does your High School look anything like it? Read more

Mind Overload! from Technology & "Societal Exhaustion"

Mindfulness: "I've seen it transform classrooms . . . " Read more

21st Century Skills: A "thorny problem" in the classroom

. . . .most high schools' science "experiments" are really "demonstrations," because they are "rigged" for the right answer, thereby disqualifying them as true experiments where outcomes are unknown. Read more

Touche' on Testing

"But 'broadening assessment' should be part of a larger teaching perspective that enables students . . . " -Ellliot Seif, former professor, Temple University Read more

NEW POST: Does your high school promote clique culture?

"You see us as you want to see us... " Read more

Failure: It's the Badge of Honor in Silicon Valley & the OPPOSITE in School

Would this EVER Happen in a School Setting?" . . . .up to 500 tech start-up newbies have gathered with industry veterans who dish on their "biggest fail" and lead round-table discussions with titles like "How to Conduct Yourself When It All Goes Off the Rails." Read more

Weekend Funnies: How to inspire kids to be "Not a scientist"

Man-Made Climate Change?The Colbert Report - VideoThe "I'm not a scientist" riff starts at the 2:50 mark. The entire video (under 5 minutes) is well worth the watch: The Colbert ReportGet More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,The Colbert Report on Facebook,Video... Read more

MIT Prof argues that Higher Ed Online Learning is Misguided

Bring in the Hollywood budgets and special effects Read more

Ask a student, how does your teacher learn?

"They (educators) need to be able to model their own learning process for their students. Ask just about any student how much her teacher knows, and you'll get a quick answer. Ask a student how her teacher learns, and you'll likely get a confused look. This must change . . ." -Will Richardson Read more

Stephen Colbert's Sound Advice: How To Ace The SAT's

Tip #1: "Spend A Lot Of Money . . ." Read more

TEENS -- A LOST GENERATION?

Now almost 16 million views - "brilliant" video - under two minutes Read more

The problem with tests that are not standardized

Alfie Kohn delivers a blow to teacher-created tests (the wrong kind for the wrong reasons) Read more

Being Pegged, Late Bloomers and Effort

How 2012 Nobel Prize Winner Dissed by His High School Biology Teacher Read more

Hacking School Ratings & Test Scores

"Recognizing that their students learn best when actively engaged, Consortium Schools typically use inquiry-based methods of learning . . ." Read more

21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020

Desks, Language Labs, Computers, Homework, Standardized Tests in College Admissions . . . . Read more

Ideal Elite College Students: "Excellent Sheep"

"Everybody - administrators, admissions officers, faculty and students - knows that the pressures of the resume race are out of control." Read more

11 Back-to-School Parenting Scenes of the 70s (Humor)

Get up in the morning and make yourself a cup of Sanka with Sweet 'n' Low. Line up all the lunchboxes on the formica counter top in your kitchen. Open up a bag of Wonder Bread and do this assembly line style. Read more

The secret message communicated to most young people today by the society around them is that they are not needed, that the society will run itself quite nicely until they - at some distant point in the future - will take over the reigns. Yet the fact is that the society is not running itself nicely... because the rest of us need all the energy, brains, imagination and talent that young people can bring to bear down on our difficulties. For society to attempt to solve its desperate problems without the full participation of even very young people is imbecile.

Alvin Toffler

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If I were trying to select a school system for my children . . ."

CJ Westerberg, 01.21.2015

"If I were trying to select a school system for my children or grandchildren, I'd beware of . . . ." - Howard Gardner, Harvard School of Education

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"It's Disengagement, Stupid"

CJ Westerberg, 12.11.2014

The 10 Essential Rules for Engagement

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Chinese Super Schools?

CJ Westerberg, 11.09.2014

"No one, after 12 years of Chinese education, has any chance to receive a Nobel prize, even if he or she went to Harvard, Yale, Oxford or Cambridge for college . . ." Yong Zhao

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