Common Core – This Too Shall Pass

Everywhere you look in education you see the words Common Core. It is plastered on the covers of textbook and workbooks being pushed by publishers. You see it infecting conference session titles and keynote speeches. It has literally taken over the conversation in education and every facet of it. Yet, nobody really knows what it […]

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Innovation Day – The Trilogy

As many of my readers know, my school started an annual Innovation Day where we allowed students free reign of their learning. The first year it became pretty popular and the second year was just as successful. I have enjoyed helping other classes and schools get their own Innovation Days off the ground and love […]

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Student Thoughts

[View the story “Student Thoughts” on Storify] Student Thoughts Some thoughts from my students during a discussion on Ray Bradbury’s story The Veldt. Storified by Josh Stumpenhorst· Fri, Feb 15 2013 13:50:00 For those "listening" in…we read a short story called The Veldt by Ray Bradbury. http://www.veddma.com/veddma/Veldt.htm #studentthoughtsJosh Stumpenhorst "Technology ruins as many lives as […]

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To Fix Public Education

I’ve been asked several times what I think the number one problem in public education is. More specifically I’ve been asked if I could change one thing about public education what would that be. Most people are going to assume that I would said we need to get rid of standardized testing or get rid […]

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A New Hope

from wikipedia.com I am a big fan of the Star Wars movies and have had a love affair with the intergalactic stories since I was a small child. Recently, I was watching for the _(fill in huge number)_millionth time, EpisodeIV: A New Hope. For the three people on the planet that have not seen this […]

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The Streak

This past year I committed on January 1st, 2012 to run at least a mile a day for 365 days. I honestly didn’t think it would last that long and I was right. On January 9th, I rolled my ankle pretty badly playing in one of my basketball league games. Sorry for the grossness of the picture…felt […]

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Tragic Takeaways

I sat at my desk yesterday while my students were taking a district assessment. I opened up tweetdeck to see what my PLN was up to on this fine Friday. One of the columns I have in tweetdeck is for news and journalists from around the world. That was when I saw the tweet that […]

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Allegory of the School

A dialogue between S. Crates and G. Laucon about the school: S. Crates: Here is a parable to illustrate the ways in which our teaching may be enlightened or unenlightened. Imagine the condition of teachers instructing in a school with no connection to the outside world. Here in this school, these teachers have taught side […]

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