Fires in the Bathroom

I’m thinking a lot about education reform since our EdTechTalk Sunday night, which ended up focusing on policy-level questions towards the end of our conversations. Tonight I read Mike Muir’s blog post about the book “Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students” by Kathleen Cushman and Lisa Delpit. This book sounds like exactly the sort of thing our school board members and state/national legislators should be reading. Let’s listen more to the students and the teachers, and less from the pundits and politicians.

Definitely check out the accompanying website, What Kids Can Do. From the Neighborhood Story Project to Adobe Youth Voices, this is a website tied to issues that students care about and adults should take notice.

I also enjoyed the following reflection from Mike Muir in the same post:

It makes me think about Dennis Littky’s saying: If we love kids more than we love schools, then we have to change schools. And it makes me think about Al Gore’s saying: Change is inconvenient (his context is the environment, but mine is education).

Sadly, I think many politicians DO NOT love kids more than they love getting re-elected. Maybe you and I should both read “Fires in the Bathroom” and then send a copies to our local legislators or school board members. Afterwards, we could setup a literature circle to discuss and action plan. Sound far fetched? Remember Margaret Mead’s quotation:

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

We may be a small group in the edublogosphere, but our numbers are growing along with our resolve. I’m going to keep speaking out. You should too.

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On this day..

• Archived Learning from the 2015 Mobile Learning Experience – 2015
• Prevent Spiders and Bugs from Getting In a Garage Tornado Shelter – 2014
• Grand View THUNDERS UP! #playingwithmedia – 2012
• Get Arabic and English News Perspectives on Meedan.net – 2010
• Mining could transform the economy of Afghanistan – 2010
• Pro-Envelope lobby fighting paperless movement – 2010
• Momentous evening of family co-learning with WordPress – 2008
• VoiceThread archival export and comment moderation experiences – 2008
• links for 2008-06-14 – 2008
• New link for Mother’s Day Podcasts – 2007