Journalist Bob Schieffer, of CBS's Face the Nation, has taken in Dariya Fadeeva, a former Chechen student who survived the massive September 2004 attack on her school because she was late to school that day (CBS's Bob Schieffer Opens His Home to Russian Student).
Another TV show with a (tangential) connection to education. This one is HBO's NSFW show, "Hung" (An early look): "The new HBO dramedy is set in Detroit against the backdrop of a
financially ruined automotive industry skyline, and as the world
crumbles around him, Ray is forced to re-evaluate his life while
everything he cares about slowly slips away. It's unsettling and sad,
but in some ways, fortuitous ... at least for HBO anyway. Considering
the current economic crisis many Americans are experiencing, a lot of people are going to relate to this show."
Have you seen it? Does it look any good? My guess is no. Sad that in the world of pop culture working in a school is still considered to be such a horrible thing that it might justify an illegal job on the side. Hung is not to be confused with Breaking Bad, the AMC drama about (sort of) a high school chemistry teacher, which just finished its 2nd season (Walter White's Report Card).
A
YouTube video was posted on June 9, 2009, in which an 8th grader named
Aaron Shutway, standing at one end of a basketball court, performs a
front handspring while holding the ball, and in landing the flip shoots
across the court, and makes the shot. (Videogum)
Forget the CREDO report. It's way too late for anything as puny as research. Even the stalwart NY Times' Sunday Styles Section is going all charter-y. This recent "Vows" entry tells the story about how a pair of newlyweds met:
"They immediately offered their services at the James M. Singleton Charter Middle School and gave cameras to a group mostly consisting of eighth graders to record their experiences."
Many of us thought that US schools (and media) were over-reacting to the swine flu, but maybe the concern was more appropriate than it seemed:
Hong Kong authorities on June 11 ordered all primary schools in the city to be closed for two weeks after the first cluster of local swine flu cases was found.(Jezebel)
Congratulations, Or Something, Class Of 2009
The good folks at Videogum point out that today is the 20th anniversary of the release of Dead Poets Society, the prep-school drama that some people love and others...don't (Where Is The Dead Poets Society 20th Anniversary DVD?). Here's the last scene of the movie, which has been viewed over 500,000 times.
Stephen Colbert Cameos In High School Principal's Commencement Speech HuffPo
Goodrich
High School Principal David St. Aubin being deployed to Iraq Flint News
Via Jennifer Mascia on Facebook
It's going to be hard to beat the DC charter high school that got Michelle Obama for their speaker, or Denison High School where Sully Sullenberger, the Hudson River airline pilot hero, is going to be speaking, but I bet there are some great (and not so great) speakers that are (or have been) invited this year.
Here's what I have so far, besides Sullenberger: Current and former White House press secretaries Gibbs and McLellan are speaking at DC area high schools (here). Lots of other Beltway types here.Out in the real world, SecDef Gates spoke at East High in Wichita and apparently compared himself to Austin Powers. Sugar Ray Leonard spoke at his alma mater, Parkdale HS (here).
From Cathy Grimes at the Newport News Daily Press: "Had Mark Gordon (movie and TV producer, Grey’s Anatomy, Saving Private Ryan, etc.) as commencement speaker at Hampton Roads Academy (he’s an alum, Class of 1974) in Newport News, Va. He regaled them with his setback-strewn (and two-decades long) path to success, which included some really awful jobs, some really awful living situations and three nervous breakdowns before he was 30."
Is EdSec Duncan speaking at any events? I speculated about this long ago (Which Commencement Will The EdSec Attend?.) and hear he's done one already but think was a college (St. Michael's in Vermont). Or maybe the Octo-Mom? Who gets Tom Brady? I'd love to know.
Watch Deadspin's highlights from the Spelling Bee -- these kids are funny, not just awkward. Then, go home! It's Friday.
"Schools from Hillsdale, N.J., to Bend, Ore., wary in a litigious era about sexual harassment or improper touching — or citing hallway clogging and late arrivals to class — have banned hugging or imposed a three-second rule." From the Times (Hello Means ‘How About a Hug?’). Even better, see the video: Hugging Is Hip
"According to a study out this month in Motivation and Emotion but excerpted in the Economist, if you smiled in high school, you'll live happily ever after. If you glowered, you'll glower to the grave. ...What is more interesting, however, is if there is a relationship between senior quotes and marital status (Gawker: Surly Seniors Become Sad Divorcées)."
Precious wants a light-skinned boyfriend with nice hair, and to be in a BET video. But in real life she's sixteen, still in junior high school, and pregnant for the second time.
Oh, and she's being abused by her mother.
A Florida student's mom demands the school yearbook be reprinted after her daughter is shown bottomless, with no panties.
"In the past two weeks, there have been three separate attacks using poison, sending over 100 girls to the hospital." (Jezebel)
Wanda Sykes at the 7:45 mark at the White House Correspondents Dinner: "Our teachers are grossly underpaid. That's right...Pay the teachers more. Then maybe then they'll stop sleeping with the students."
720 ILCS 5/32-5.1: False Personation of a Peace Officer.
Odometer fraud (tampering): 49 U.S.C. § 32703(2) Odometer fraud (conspiracy): 49 U.S.C. § 32703(4)
720 ILCS 5/Art. 16D - 3 - Computer tampering
720 ILCS 130/2a, contributing to the delinquency of children.
Save Ferris campaign might be liable for soliciting under the 740 ILCS 128 Predator Accountability Act.
Crimes Perpetrated by Ferris Bueller (and Accomplices) During His Day Off Mental Floss
Jason Schwartzman is in it, Judd Apatow made it. It's full of awful sitcom cliches. Supposedly this is intentional.
Via Videogum (A Fake Sitcom By Judd Apatow)
Another 11-Year-Old Boy Commits Suicide After Homophobic Bullying
Feministe via Jezebel
Bullying sucks, no matter what you're being bullied about.
For a couple of years in school, I was bullied. No one did anything
about it. Adults seemed confused, and sorta intimidated by the bully.
It's all Columbine, all the time, over at USA Today -- and apparently we've got a lot to learn:
The real story behind the rampage
Major U.S. incidents since 1983
Schools focus more on security, outreach
Programs help prevent violence
Books get into twisted minds of Columbine killers
You can click on the map here.
NB: The paper counts just three Chicago-area incidents over 26 years, while Chicago papers count 32 deaths this year alone. The difference? Chicago folks count any kid's death as school violence. USA Today is focusing on in-school (on campus) deaths only.
Everyone's favorite kid reporter was on 20/20 on Friday (video here), talking about guns in his community, learning about witnesses' fears of retribution, and asking for President Obama's help (Damon Weaver, 10, Appeals to Obama).
Not strictly a schools issue, but one that affects schools and schoolchildren -- and makes the Broader, Bolder argument pretty effectively.
Tina Fey called Heathers the hardcore version of Mean Girls. I don't think I ever saw this 1989 movie all the way through, however. How did they get away with the school violence part, I wonder?
"There is really no separation between good and evil in Heathers; everyone is a bitch, everyone has their own motives, everyone is out for themselves."
How Veronica Sawyer Saved Teen Movie Heroines (Jezebel)
Trailer is below if you want a reminder.
Here the Principal Rules, according to a commenter who goes as Retired Principal:
1. The principal always makes the rules...2. Rules are subject to change at any time without prior notification... 3. No teacher can possibly know all the rules...
9. If the principal is wrong, it is because of a flagrant misunderstanding which is a direct result of something that a teacher did or said....
18. A quiet teacher, like a quiet classroom, is the best indication of superior performance."
Click here for the full list. (Scroll down to the fifth comment or so.)
First, those homeschooled kids started winning spelling bees. Now, charter school kids are competing in reality TV contests. She's Allison Iraheta. She's in the top ten finalists on this season's American Idol. She was in the bottom three last week. She goes to Animo Ralph Bunche -- a Green Dot school in LA (sorry!). Her older sister is a teacher at the same school.
Remember Rudy Stein in the original Bad News Bears? Me, neither. Well, sorta. Anyway, the kid who played Stein, now 49, is named David Pollock and he currently works for the California School Board Association as senior director of program development. He's also the former president of the Moorpark Unified School District in southern California. (The Bears Are Badder Than Ever via Deadspin). |
Here's another edu-family to check out:
Patrick Riccards (pictured, far right), writes Eduflack and is CEO of Exemplar Strategic Communications. His father
is a retired college president who headed institutions such as St. Johns College in Santa Fe. His mother was a lifelong NEA
high school English teacher, who walked the picket lines in West
Virginia in 1990!
That's not even the half of it, however.
Patrick's wife, Dr. Jennifer Riccards, is a senior policy analyst at the US Department of Education's OPEPD and runs their Doing What Works website. His wife's father was a Massachusetts superintendent, recently retired. His wife's grandfather helped lead the desegregation of Philly's public schools when he was assistant superintendent.
Feel like keeping this going? Send me something about your family -- or a family you know about -- if you think it's up to the "edu-family" label. Mail to thisweekineducation at gmail dot com.
Last week's edu-families post was really popular, so here's another post based on a reader submission. Van Schoales, founder of the first Expeditionary Learning charter school (in Colorado), recently discovered that his great grandmother, Narcissa Cox Vanderlip (pictured) invited Maria
Montessori to help her establish the first school in the US to the
Montessori method. Writes Schoales: "The
Scarborough School which no longer exists could not have been more
different from the Italian version nevertheless provided a model for an
important line of progressive education."
I don't know if this is an LA thing or what, but St. Patrick's Day is (I found out yesterday) a very big deal in South Central Los Angeles. I've never seen so many African-American folks wearing green -- not even in Boston. Little kids with construction paper headbands. Every variation of green you can imagine -- no particular focus on kelly green. And weather in the 80s. Maybe I'm just ignorant but it certainly isn't like this in Chicago. Not sure about other places. It was very sweet, if sort of strange. Who knew that a holiday focused on pasty white folks getting all happy would be so popular in such an unlikely place. But I guess people take on / take over all sorts of holidays.
French movie "The Class" (Entre Les Murs) has garnered a ton of positive reviews for its nuanced portrayal of a lively classroom of diverse students outside Paris. But that's not enough for blogger Dan Brown, who calls out the movie for "the startling hollowness of its narrative."
Geez. I bet Dan thought that Slumdog Millionaires was unrealistic poverty porn that shouldn't have won all those Oscars, too.
Last week, it was Anderson and Anderson. This week it's Kohlmoos and Kohlmoos:
Jim Kohlmoos (president Knowledge Alliance), Ruth Goltzer (wife and mother) --- veteran volunteer tutor in Arlington Public Schools, Luke Kohlmoos (23 year old son)--- staff associate, Chancellor’s office, DC Public Schools (2008-9), Lacey Kohlmoos (25 year old daughter)--- teacher, Costa Rica (2007) and now International Development. Not pictured: Bean (7 year old mut) ---- supporter for all of the above.
Your family full of educators, at least some of them prominent? Know anyone's whose is? Let us know here, or email me at thisweekineducation at gmail dot com.
Appropriate caution, or political correctness run amok? You make the call.
Concerned that someone might find it offensive, officials at a school in Portland told a student he couldn't wear an Obama mask as part of his talent show dance performance (Principal: student can't wear Obama
Now, the student has withdrawn from the show -- he says he's too shy to perform with his face showing (Boy Says He Won't Dance Without Obama Mask).
What about an Arne Duncan mask?
"Two students were arguing on the ride home. The frazzled bus driver tried to intervene. Then came, according to authorities, the driver's offer to the entire bus: $20 to anyone who would bombard one of the boys with a snowball."
"Seven took her up on the offer, and now Loudoun County school bus driver Katina M. Mitchell, 34, of Sterling has been charged with seven misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. And she's the talk of the county."
School Bus Driver Charged for Inciting Snowball Attack Washington Post (via a friend of the blog).
I don't think this is anything new, but I've heard about it three times in the last few weeks -- kids referring to their full legal name as their "government" name, as opposed to their preferred or commonly used name.
Sometimes this is just a teenager embarrassed to have his friends find out his full name is Gladstone, not Gladdy. Other times, it's more about hiding someone's legal identity from law enforcement. Sometimes abbreviated to "government," as in "Why are you using my government? No one calls me that."
What's it feel like to parents, I wonder, to have children refer to the names they were given as something foreign or unwanted? What does it say about a view of society when individuals' names -- given and family -- are considered foreign and official rather than personal and individual?
Pay no attention to the starlet (Megan Fox of Tranformers fame).
The key here is the Wonderland Avenue Elementary School, which Fox is leaving after having visited her (ex?) boyfriend Brian Austin Green's son and teachers.
Yes, celebs send their children to public schools sometimes. I thought they all homeschooled these days.
Wonderland has a 10 rating from Great Schools.
It's located just off Laurel Canyon Road, where I used to ride every day on my way to work.
The New York Times notes that, among the 50 people who died in last week's plane crash, there were two with connections to the Clarence Central School District -- Ellyce
Kausner, a 2003 graduate of the district high school, and the husband of Karen Wielinski, a
secretary in the school district’s personnel department, whose house was hit by the plan (Fifty Varied Lives, Ended on a Cold, Foggy Night).
“It is both surreal and somber,” said Thomas G. Coseo, the superintendent of schools in Clarence who handed Ms. Kausner her diploma more than five years ago. “On one level, these two cases help personalize for the people who live here the stories of the others who were on board. There are ties between human beings that you don’t realize until a tragedy like this happens.”
As always, I'm amazed and impressed by the number of people who write in to share their ideas for who they think is particularly "hot....for education" in 2009.
The recommendations come from a wide variety of talent pools: co-workers, classmates, rivals, conference crushes.
There's still time if you haven't written in already and shared your ideas: thisweekineducation at gmail dot com. Thanks!
Authorities say an Ohio fourth-grade teacher had a side job as a prostitute, and even skipped class after using a school computer to arrange an afternoon tryst at a motel...Bellefontaine City Schools Superintendent Larry Anderson says officials are shocked. He says Carter never received a reprimand in 13 years at the district. (Police: Ohio teacher cut class for prostitution USA Today)
So apparently the guy who sang the role of the conductor on "Conjunction Junction" was in love with the woman who sang the chorus. Remember?:
She was also known for other Schoolhouse Rock tunes, including "Figure Eight." Now you know. Link here. Via Jezebel, natch.
At least one of the 10 Oscar nominees for short features is about school: New Boy (NYT) Showing in selected theaters.
Yes, it's almost time again for this blog's most disreputable -- and popular -- annual feature, Hot...For Education.
But first, I need your ideas.Alas, Jon Hamm and Angelina aren't educators, policy wonks, reporters, or staffers.
But maybe there's someone you work with who reminds you of them?
If you want some more inspiration, here are links to the previous three versions:2008, 2007), 2005. There was no 2006 -- momentary shyness on my part, I think.
Write in your suggestions below (you don't have to identify yourself), or send them to me at thisweekineducation at gmail.com. Pics are helpful, too. Have fun -- but remember to keep it clean.
And you think your commute is scary.
Kid Rides A Zip Line To School.
Shades of 2007! After a year that seemed blissfully free of attractive blond teachers getting freaky with pimply teenage boys and sending them text messages about it, a California woman who worked in the sports department of a local high school has apparently crossed the line: Trainer Did More Than Tape Ankles, Apparently (Deadspin).
The Washington Post's Reliable Source wants to know if Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and DC superintendent Michelle Rhee are a school reform power couple, and go so far as to call DC and get her response: Rhee & Kevin Johnson: Extracurricular Activities?.
No word on what Johnson has to say. For other power couples in education check out previous posts:
Power Couple Pics
Hot Education Power Couples
Power Couples In Education, The Update
NYT Adopts "Power Couples In Education" Idea
If there are more couples, or if they've changed, let us know.
From last week's New Yorker:
"At this time, I'd like to welcome our gold - medallion passengers on board."
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in This Week In Education are strictly those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Scholastic, Inc.
