In June 2013 the tone of the professional dialogue that I am hearing sounds more and more like a race to the end rather than arriving at a place at the top, with little left in our professional reserves to have a healthy disposition towards the important work that we do both now and in the future.  With battle lines hardening in the larger polity, education is caught in the grips of a debilitating claim of right and wrong, us and them, new and old.  I keep asking myself, how…

Can educational policymakers see if there’s other, perhaps equally important ways to assess the value of a child’s experience in the learning process beyond standardized tests?  With all of the recent questions and concerns regarding such testing, is there any way to see if students are prepared for their future beyond the numbers they receive from being excessively tested?  If we are looking for evidence of active engagement of learning that lasts a lifetime, you may want to search no…

Do you recall that image of the scarecrow pointing in two directions when Dorothy reaches a fork in the road in the movie The Wizard of Oz?  I find myself reminded of that scene when I think about where we are in education today.

On the one hand, we are asked to challenge students to dig deeper in their learning.  On the other hand, we are driven to engage children an inch deep and a mile wide with testing and tasks.  We are told to raise standards, but cut your budgets;…

As the ongoing assault to our senses in the form of the overused measurement instruments known as high stakes standardized tests continues unabated, our school district prepares to engage stakeholders from nearby schools in a gathering of staff and students to celebrate the wisdom of using a simple way to observe powerful learning—through and in a school garden.  Here is what visitors can expect:

• See the curiosity of young minds gathering on the fertile ground that can…