psychology dector

One of the voices I’ve missed in this crazy election season is David Carr’s.   He was The New York Times media reporter and author of The Night of the Gun:  A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own.   (Simon & Schuster, 2009).   He would have something to say about the way the media has covered Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and how each candidate has manipulated those same media outlets in return.   It has been quite a feeding frenzy, and Carr would know what to make of it and possibly, how to make sense of it. Working in an academic institution, I am struck by the kind of snobbery those in the ivory tower have for journalists.   Evidently, it is more courageous and intellectual to research and write a paper on some obtuse and disconnected corner of the universe than it is to go out into the desert embedded with American soldiers and report back on the war against ISIS.   When one teacher heard that I called myself a...

Nikhil Goyal is a writer of prodigious talents, all of which are on display in his book, Schools On Trial:  How Freedom and Creativity Can Fix Our Educational Malpractice (Doubleday, 2016). His thesis is clear:   take students and allow them to study what they want to study at their own pace.   No tests, assignments, homework, or grades.   All work is project-based.   If this is done correctly, students become life-long learners and will naturally gravitate to a program of study that is both self-directed and incredibly rich, mainly because they decide for themselves what avenues to pursue.   In Goyal’s view, one recently formed by his time in compulsory education, a traditional classroom with desks in a row, regular structured assignments and grades, lectures and discussions, and programmed courses of study all meld together to stultify students and actually turn them away from learning. What he advocates has been done before, and he makes this clear in h...

There is no shortage of books about education, and most of them are not positive.   The line of critics telling us what is wrong in our schools, with our teachers, and with students today, stretches to infinity.   If someone does manage to sneak through a book extolling something positive that is happening in the classroom, he is shouted down by those holding up schools as models of disorganization and chaos filled with child molesters and do-nothings.   No doubt, American education has been at a crossroads, a critical juncture that may well determine the future of the nation.   However, there is good happening on our school campuses.   And there are excellent teachers doing the job and living the life in the face of almost constant criticism and negativity. One of those good teachers is Rafe Esquith, winner of the National Medal of the Arts and the Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award among other honors.   Even Queen Elizabeth has t...

One teacher sat outside on the breezeway running through math flashcards, challenging his primary grade students to solve the problems.   To his left was a whiteboard on an easel, should he need to explain something with a diagram.   His students were riveted to his lesson. Across the playground, another primary teacher supervised her students as they completed exercises in a workbook, fat pencils in hand.   Again, students were absorbed in their work. On another bench, middle school students were playing a variety of games, prepping for their upcoming high school entrance exams.   The mood was lighthearted and fun. Summer and school are bad words, language most foul, at least to students who want their freedom from the classroom for the balmy-to-ferociously hot days of June, July, and August.   In recent years, school districts and private school boards have flirted with lengthening the school year, or even daring to suggest eliminating summer vacation altoge...