Presidents have preferred quoting Shakespeare, though Mr. Obama has yet to do so in public.  Lincoln was enchanted by Macbeth; Jefferson and Adams ventured to Stratford-upon-Avon together.  Though he hasn’t quoted the Bard in public, Barry Edelstein’s recent NYTimes article points out
His closest brush was in his Inaugural Address, where his evocative phrase “this winter [...]

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The Kindle is poised to change the way we read, not to mention the ways in which authors write and publishers produce books.  In his insightful article, Steven Johnson lays out several realistic possibilities for the future of reading in an age of the Kindle.  He speaks of a world in which Google can search [...]

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A recent report on college hazing practices showed that high schools are just as rife with the practice. While the study itself seems well worth a read, it got me thinking about the kinds of subtler hazing that we educators engage in at school.  Don’t we have our own way of hazing students into academic [...]

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In the recent issue of English Journal, Viv Ellis writes about why teaching toward understanding sexual identity is important in English education.  He tells a powerful story of a student of his who was cruelly beaten to death, having been labeled gay.  Ellis pinpoints his student’s death as a turning point in his teaching English [...]

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Next month, I’ll be presenting at a conference on the uselessness of literature in an age of new literacies. It will be at the TCETC (Teachers College Educational Technology Conference) in New York. In short, my argument is that English teachers are being called on to teach into “21st Literacy Skills” more [...]

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Literature’s power rests on imagination.  With all the new technological advances, literary writers have to step it up a notch.  Bemoaning the iPhone is hardly effective:
Technology is rendering obsolete some classic narrative plot devices: missed connections, miscommunications, the inability to reach someone. Such gimmicks don’t pass the smell test when even the most remote destinations [...]

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How not to protest in the 21st century: Do what New School students did the other day.  The New York Times reported it thus:
More than 20 people occupied a building on the New School campus in Greenwich Village on Friday, demanding that the school’s embattled president, Bob Kerrey, be ousted. But unlike a similar protest [...]

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A teacher shortage is near. As older teachers retire and new teachers fail to make it past the first couple years, there will soon be too few teachers to go around. The solution, might be
To ease the exodus, the report says, policy makers should restructure schools and modify state retirement policies so that [...]

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There are said to be two literary allusions on a cup of Starbucks coffee.
The first is in the name, Starbuck being Ahab’s first mate in Moby Dick. The second is the image, which is said to depict a Siren from Homer’s Odyssey. It’s the lattet that draws my attention.
When my wife and were at [...]

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What is Georgia doing?  This is what I read today on the train:
The Georgia House of Representatives signed off on final changes to a plan that boosts the pay of certified math and science teachers. The proposal would allow new secondary school teachers with proper certification to start at the salary of a fifth-year teacher.
This [...]

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I just finished Jeff Jarvis’s WWGD.  An excellent, if not perfect, read that I highly recommend to colleagues in education. There are some things missing, however, with his chapter on education.  He didn’t go far enough. 
I am thinking specifically about the role that certain institutions play in the hording of research.  For example, when [...]

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According to a recent study in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education, there are five reasons educators frequent professional social networks:
1. sharing emotions;
2. utilizing the advantages of online environments;
3. combating teacher isolation;
4. exploring ideas; and
5. experiencing a sense of camaraderie.
The study, though informative, focuses on the effects of such social networks—like the English [...]

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Arne Duncan wants new kinds of data from states.  While governors will get billions in stimulus money right away, the second half of the dough will be held until states get straight.  According to the Times,
The data is likely to reveal that in many states, tests have been dumbed down so that students score far [...]

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Laptops aren’t magical. They don’t produce fuzzy bunnies out of the ether; they don’t wondrously change how students learn in classrooms. They are tools. Very powerful tools. But when I read this piece about Maine schools below, I cringed:
State education officials announced three weeks ago that they hoped to provide a [...]

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