schmoozED

Two interesting NYTimes articles on education have come my way recently, both of which are success stories that have drawn the attention of the general media. The first is a report on an effort in Jewish schools to stamp out gossip. You can see the story at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/nyregion/27gossip.html?

The second story relates the success of Shimon Waronker as principal of a difficult junior high school in the Bronx - see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/nyregion/08principal.html?
This story has been picked up in other places, as well - see, for example
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23590816#23590816

A feature by Ben Harris in the Wall Street Journal includes some of the research that appears in Flipping Out?, which I authored together with Dan Jacobson and Chaim Waxman. I think that seeing how the experience is described to the general public offers insight into the educational experience that so many of our students and children encounter.

When posted on Gil Student's Hirhurim blog the feature attracted quite a bit of feedback.

Know some creative, artistic students. Tell them about the new competition at Google: Doodle 4 Google.

In this competition K-12 students are invited to play around with the Google homepage logo and see what they come up with. This year theme is - "What if...?"

For more information see:http://www.google.com/doodle4google/info.html.

Labels: competition, google, k-12

JESNA’s Lippman Kanfer Institute and CAJE are conducting a survey of Jewish educators that seeks their views on factors that affect their work as educators and that invites respondents to submit examples of new approaches to educator recruitment, preparation, development and support that are geared to responding to changing conditions in the field. If you would like to take the survey, please go to
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=cEChYcr_2fgEFC3pc3w6fJjA_3d_3d

I once thought about developing half hour television programs that would focus on a bored student in Humash class who would daydream about the stories that were being taught. My idea was to offer a variety of different perspectives – all based on traditional commentaries – that would play out while in the background the teacher droned on and on.

Well, I never took my idea further than the drawing board, and it appears that someone else has done it first – although a bit differently than I envisioned it.

See this short Haaretz TV spot, which describes a new initiative that will be used in Israeli schools this month.