Archives: 2010 January 25

@newsfromtengrrl for 2010-01-25

Jan 25

An introduction to the poetry of Robert Burns | Don Paterson | Books | The Guardian http://bit.ly/6a73zY #
William Stafford's birthday rekindles love of poetry | Oregon Books – OregonLive.com http://bit.ly/4LtzX0 #
'Concerning E.M. Forster' by Frank Kermode – latimes.com http://bit.ly/8Sj47a #
Grant Writers, Get Ready. Bill Gates Is Fired Up About Online Learning. – The Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/8vnOGE #
Nonprofit Center for Information Technology Opens With Support From Education Dept. – The Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/5nmuhm #
As Open-Access Chatter Grows, U. of Rochester Debuts New Repository Software – The Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/5tU8yY #
Tips & Tricks for Effective Lecturecasting | ProfHacker | http://bit.ly/6VGsJj #
Online-Course Limits, Rooted in Maryland's Racial History, Could Raise Issues for Other States – CHE – http://bit.ly/8gDSpQ #
Trustees and Professors Don't Understand One Another's Roles, Survey Finds – The Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/8hor02 #
Educators Mull How to Motivate Professors to Improve Teaching – The Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/90aLRB #
Business Curricula Need a Strong Dose of the Liberal Arts, Scholars Say – The Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/6qG48M #
Cost of College Is a Big Worry of Freshmen in National Survey – Student Affairs – The Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/6FHwYe #
5 Lessons Professors Can Learn From Video Games – The Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/5TsBRf #
The Provocations of Mark Taylor – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/8J1qsp #
The Book Club With Just One Member – NYTimes.com http://bit.ly/8TmCBM #
An Introducation to the Poetry of Lord Byron | Germaine Greer | Books | The Observer http://bit.ly/6VABjj #
Sundance lets out a HOWL: Cinematic version of Ginsberg's poem opens film fest http://bit.ly/91wOCC #
Burns night: Poetry and emotion – The Scotsman http://bit.ly/8NyHcq #
As Texas teachers sell their lesson plans online, should districts get a cut? | Dallas Morning News | http://bit.ly/58vKwI #
They’re teaching a romance novel course at Yale, but it’s not what you think- The New Haven Register – http://bit.ly/5IwKX7 #
Canadian Prof Criticizes Exam Waiver for Ph.D. Candidate With Anxiety Disorder – Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/84Sszo #

Change Your Metaphor

Jan 25

tengrrl21st century literacy, Bedford Bits, Education, NCTE Inbox Comments Off

No more plug and play education. It’s time for more blossom and grow! Okay, so the metaphors aren’t really parallel. I guess it should be plant and grow, but that’s not as catchy. The difference between the two metaphors, though, it spot on for what we need to pursue for effective instruction.

I wrote about educational metaphors for NCTE’s Inbox blog this week. I wasn’t really thinking about the different ways of thinking about education until I read the PDF of Chapter One from Rebecca Bowers Sipe’s Adolescent Literacy at Risk? The Impact of Standards.

The agrarian metaphor for the educational system that Sipe outlines suddenly clicked perfectly with the “growth mindset” that I read about last fall in the article“The Truth about Grit,” published in The Boston Globe. (You can read more about that article in one of my Bedford Bits blogs from last October.)

The words we use always matter. In the case of metaphors, they can matter more than we may realize. The industrial metaphor for education has brought us a classroom where the strategies and information can be uniform. There’s no accounting for the differentiation of the students. Every student is the same. Teachers just plug in the units, and students are ready to go.

Course, in the real classroom, every student is different. That’s why plug and play strategies don’t work—and why we need to shift the way we think about education back to a more agrarian model that relies on strategies that help students blossom and grow.