What Are You Reading?

[y66]

Just read this story by Amanda Ripley in The Atlantic: What Makes A Great Teacher?.

 

Teach for America, a nonprofit that recruits college graduates to spend two years teaching in low-income schools, began outside the educational establishment and has largely remained there. For years, it has been whittling away at its own assumptions, testing its hypotheses, and refining its hiring and training. Over time, it has built an unusual laboratory: almost half a million American children are being taught by Teach for America teachers this year, and the organization tracks test-score data, linked to each teacher, for 85 percent to 90 percent of those kids. Almost all of those students are poor and African American or Latino. And Teach for America keeps an unusual amount of data about its 7,300 teachers—a pool almost twice the size of the D.C. system’s teacher corps.

 

Until now, Teach for America has kept its investigation largely to itself. But for this story, the organization allowed me access to 20 years of experimentation, studded by trial and error. The results are specific and surprising.

Mr. Taylor follows a very basic lesson plan often referred to by educators as “I do, we do, you do.” He does a problem on the board. Then the whole class does another one the same way. Then all the kids do a problem on their own. During the “we” portion of the lesson, Mr. Taylor calls on students to help solve the problem. But he does this using the “equity sticks”—a can of clothespins, each of which has a student’s name on it. That way, he ensures a random sample. The shy ones don’t get lost.

 

As the kids move into group work, there is a low buzz in the room. I try, but I can’t find a child who isn’t talking about math. One little boy leans across his desk to help another with a problem. “What do you add to 8 to get 16?” he says, and then he waits. “Eight,” the other boy says. “Then,” says the first, “you subtract that and what do you get?”

 

The activities come in brisk sequence, following a routine the kids know by heart, so no time is lost in transition. In Teaching as Leadership, Farr describes seeing such choreography in other high-performance classrooms. “We see routines so strong that they run virtually without any involvement from the teacher. In fact, for many highly effective teachers, the measure of a well-executed routine is that it continues in the teacher’s absence.”

This guy probably also teaches the Han/Helene/Cherdano way of comparing fractions:

 

Next, Mr. Taylor goes to the board to teach a new way to do long division. It’s a clever method that takes a little longer but is much easier than most other methods, and I’ve never seen it before. “You want to work smart, not hard,” he tells me later. “If you just show them the traditional method, not everyone understands.” He actually learned the method last year—from one of his students.

[Winstonm]

There are many traditional and practical teaching methods which are based on common sense – workable methods. I believe we teachers should devote more time identifying and implementing techniques that have withstood the acid test of classroom performance and less time “experimenting” in our classes. If we were to study the methods of a hundred very effective teachers, my guess is that we would find their approaches to be rather simple and direct, with many common denominators. As for myself, I only use those ideas which have proven worthwhile by demonstration and which I have tested. I test everything that comes to me before using it, no matter how vaunted the authority who invented it, and I strongly suggest that other teachers do the same. I always have to laugh when someone suggests that my program is dependent upon one teacher’s personality (my own) and could never serve as a model for use in other schools. It just shows how far away we have drifted from the fundamentals of teaching.

 

Jaime Escalante

[Al_U_Card]

The climategate e-mails.....like it wasn't obvious. B)

[Winstonm]

I read the news today, oh, boy,

[hrothgar]

Dust of Dreams: Book Nine of The Malazan Book of the Fallen (for pleasure)

Bayesian Data Analysis, Second Edition (for work)

[helene_t]

A bunch of essays about determinism and free will etc. Ilonka got her philosophy curriculum as ebooks so I just copied all the stuff so I don't need to carry tons of books while traveling.

[gwnn]

The Idiot.

[Lobowolf]

Master Class in Fiction Writing, by Adam Sexton

 

Sense and Sensability, by Jane Austen

 

Solo by Choice, by Carolyn Elefant

 

Alfred's Essentials of Jazz Theory, by Shelton Berg

 

Son of Simon Says, by Simon Lovell

 

Search Engine Optimization, by Kris Jones

[Fluffy]

I am reading BBO forums and OpenGL tutorials

[Aberlour10]

The Second Death of George Mallory, by Reinhold Messner

[JoAnneM]

I am reading the J.P. Beaumont series by J.A. Jance. I just read for fun.

[blackshoe]

Griffin, The Honor of Spies

Friedman, The Next 100 Years

[Hanoi5]

I was reading 'The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe' from a PDF containing all the books. Gotta finish it...

[y66]

Good Owners, Great Dogs by Brian Kilcommons and Sarah Wilson

 

The Complete Book on Overcalls (Revised and Updated) by Mike Lawrence

 

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk

 

The Ineffable by George Bilgere

 

I'm sitting here reading the paper,

feeling warm and satisfied, basically content

with my life and all I have achieved.

Then I go up for a refill and suddenly realize

how much happier I could be with the barista.

Late thirties, hennaed hair, an ahnk

or something tattooed on her ankle,

a little silver ring in her nostril.

There's some mystery surrounding why she's here,

pouring coffee and toasting bagels at her age.

But there's a lot of torsion when she walks,

which is interesting. I can sense right away

how it would all work out between us.

 

We'd get a loft in the artsy part of town,

and I can see how we'd look shopping together

at our favorite organic market

on a snowy winter Saturday,

snowflakes in our hair,

our arms full of leeks and shiitake mushrooms.

We would do tai chi in the park.

She'd be one of the few people

who actually "gets" my poetry

which I'd read to her in bed.

And I can see us making love, by candlelight,

Struggling to find words for the ineffable.

We never dreamed it could be like this.

 

And it would all be great, for many months,

until one day, unable to help myself,

I'd say something about that nostril ring.

Like, do you really need to wear that tonight

at Sarah and Mike's house, Sarah and Mike being

pediatricians who intimidate me slightly

with their patrician cool, and serious money.

And she would give me a look,

a certain lifting of the eyebrows

I can see she's capable of, and right there

that would be the end of the ineffable.

from The White Museum. © Autumn House Press, 2010. Reprinted with permission at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/

[1eyedjack]

I have a recommendation for all y'all:

 

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

 

I haven't enjoyed a book so much for a long time.

[mike777]

Catcher in the Rye....rereading.

 

I read this book about 40 years ago.....today....it is even better.

[1eyedjack]

I have a recommendation for all y'all:

 

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

 

I haven't enjoyed a book so much for a long time.

Oh bum! Got to the end only to find out that it is part one of a trilogy, and so far the only one completed.

[luke warm]

Catcher in the Rye....rereading.

 

I read this book about 40 years ago.....today....it is even better.

i just reread shogun... great book

[Lobowolf]

Catcher in the Rye....rereading.

 

I read this book about 40 years ago.....today....it is even better.

If you haven't read his other stuff ever or lately, I'd suggest doing that, too. Love Franny & Zooey, Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters, Nine Stories...great stuff.

[Winstonm]

Catcher in the Rye....rereading.

 

I read this book about 40 years ago.....today....it is even better.

I don't believe in all that David Copperfield kind of crap.

[Winstonm]

Catcher in the Rye....rereading.

 

I read this book about 40 years ago.....today....it is even better.

i just reread shogun... great book

Shogun keko desu. Wakari masu-ka?

[1eyedjack]

Just finished reading The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W E Bowman. Found it on the shelf at the in-laws' house. What a hoot. Thoroughly recommended. I see that it is back in print, with intro by Bill Bryson.

[Hanoi5]

Trying to read Catch 22.