I was inspired by this post written by a Philly Teacher, Mary Beth Hertz. School year just started and all Summer fun we had is vanishing to embrace a new collective of new faces, challenges and work. All that time we've spent on Twitter, learning and interchanging ideas has reduced and sometimes we "often feel powerless at (our) job," as Mary says. For some education professionals, as Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto, they've encountered on Twitter, a place that resembles a big noisy teacher’s lounge. Being so far away, in Kitakyushu, Japan, she also believes on the strength of social networks included Twitter, Ning, and Diigo to mention only a few. But what to do when you arrive school and discover nothing has changed? The change was still in you mind and you have fresh memories of what has been said in your PLN (Personal Learning Network). If you feel discouraged that nothing has changed indeed, remember that process like this, first occur in our minds. So, go back and appeal to your social network. Why? Because, in Philly Teacher's words: "A supportive and innovative PLN will help you grow in your career, help you grow as a person and give you a place to bounce new ideas around, ask simple questions or get help when you need it. It can also be a place of comfort and belonging when you feel isolated or alone." This is the third day of school while our son attends one of the three schools immerse in the Gifted and Talented Program, I've been signing papers where teachers make me acknowledge of a contract among teacher, parent, student and where they tell me about assessments, grading and discipline. Test/Quizzes and Centers are with the highest percentage of grading, 30 % each. Despite what we've been talking and learning in our PLN on Twitter, we have to say that nothing has changed, at least at our son's school. There is a policy from The Board of Education on Cell Phones and Electronics Devices, which states: "Cellphones, Iphones, beepers, headphones, radios and other electronic devices are not .
Lorettaacook's Blog The role that the education system should be in the game which people live, is to educate them to be aware, critically thinking people know not to accept passively, but the question of knowing how it is taught. Education should be taught to the students the skills and intelligence they need to understand the world and how the world works in order to survive in it. However, the American educational system has been known that students who are frightening, produce ignorant about the world and different cultures. One of the reasons is because the education system in its current state is not much room for critical thinking, but also trains individuals to be docile worker bees in a global economy, the rich the status quo and "others" believes it can hardly do. The problem becomes clear when we consider the many themes, the curriculum and are taught to search. There is a lack of emphasis on academic learning, and the only thing that counts is high investments tests. The schools in this country have teamed up with fuzzy curricula, which flooded expect to be prepared by the continuous assessment, students living in a new global society... whatever that is. I recently had a conversation with a staff and we discussed how African Americans were treated forty years ago, and I was amazed by her naivete on the subject, given the fact that it is a college graduate and an African-American . From the moment I stepped College, I was concerned, the history of African and Afro-American history from a perspective, which they themselves do not seem sub-human and provides college students to explore this possibility. I could not help wondering, but what kind of history and sociology classes, she had none of their conversation. But the sad truth is that when most people make the decision to attend college, it is harvested for the purpose of economic success, not for the expansion of consciousness. [...] The "culture of poverty" theory, which is used by some politi