To all the deluded saps still out there (including this guy) who somehow seriously believe that No Child Left Behind helps education, you’d better pay attention to this one. Tom Chapin brilliantly illustrates what’s wrong with George W. Bush’s education mandate with his song “Not On The Test”. Here’s the video…
And here’s the official website for “Not On The Test”, where you can watch the video, and if you like you can download both an MP3 of the song and the video in Quicktime format....
A high school English teacher and football coach in Alabama is using the first three Star Wars movies in his classroom to teach students about the aspects of epic literature.
...Luke Skywalker is not just a character in a series of films to David Golden, an English teacher and football coach at Hazel Green High School. The Jedi knight is an epic hero, whose rise, fall and redemption are part of a story rife with classic archetypes we all know through our collective unconscious as described by the psychologist Carl Jung.
Seriously.
Each semester, Golden’s ninth-grade students watch the original trilogy of the Star Wars movies, with Golden pointing out the situational, character and symbolic archetypes as well as literary elements.
n the cave scene in “Return of the Jedi,” Luke faces off against Darth Vader (which means dark knight in German, Golden told his students).
“It’s foggy, dense,” Golden
WGAL in Lancaster, Pennsylvania has a great story about teachers there who have made a series of Star Wars-inspired short films designed to help local students prepare for their state standardized tests. The PSSA Wars videos, offering tips on how to handle the critical exams, feature such characters as “Duke Skywriter” and “Math Solo” and even include the classic Star Wars saga-style scrolling intro. And not since Hardware Wars have there been such glorious special effects in a Star Wars spoof! Seriously though, I watched the episode that WGAL is hosting on its site at the link above, and I thought these teachers did a terrific job! Thanks to TheForce.net for this awesome find 🙂...
15-year old Amanda Rouse wasn’t feeling very well, so she stayed on her school bus for a ride back home from Marina High School. While the bus was on the road the driver fell out of her seat and hit her head. The bus went out of control and hit two cars, and had Amanda not jumped out of her seat to apply the brakes, this might have turned out a lot worse.
Because of her quick thinking, Amanda Rouse saved the lives of 40-some people on the school bus and perhaps those of others also. The girl is a heroine.
And now school administrators are punishing Amanda with Saturday detention for her “truancy”.
Too many school officials in this country – not all of them, but darn enough of them – are heartless, unthinking robots. Those of Marina High School exemplify this. Not to mention this story demonstrates ...
Today has been one of the best, most fun-filled days that I’ve had in quite a long time. And most of that is because of how I got to talk about being a filmmaker and show some “tricks of the trade” for the students of Monroeton Elementary School in Reidsville, as part of the Cultural Arts Day that it held today.
Cultural Arts Day had folks coming in to demonstrate arts like painting, sculpting, mosaics, music and storytelling. And in Mrs. Marsha Lipford’s room, we set up a “mini movie studio” – complete with camera, greenscreen and even some props and costumes – for the kids to check out…
There were five groups of students who came in during the day. Here I am telling some fourth-graders about how I got into filmmaking and how they can get into this too. I especially told them that if they want to ...
In light of my current activities, which no doubt will soon become widespread public knowledge, I understand what it’s going to look like to come out with an opinion on this. So for sake of clarification: the views and commentary that I express on this blog are my own, and not necessarily those of anyone else.
(What I mean by that will be made clear in the very near future.)
A California appeals court has ruled that most homeschooling is illegal. Only parents with the proper teaching credentials are now legally allowed to homeschool their children.
In other words, the vast majority of homeschooling families in California, per the 2nd District Court of Appeals, are now criminals if they continue with teaching their own children.
And according to Justice H. Walter Croskey in his decision, “Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children.”
That ...
This past Monday night at the meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education, I spoke during the public comments portion of the evening. Board Chairwoman Elaine McCollum had already shared some very wonderful words about Gene Saunders, and I felt led to talk about Gene too since I had been one of his students. But for the past few months I’d already had it in mind to come to this particular meeting so that I could honor someone else. It just so happened that instead of one person who made a tremendous impact on my life, I wound up going to the podium and talking about two.
After ...
Since I’ve commented on what happened at the deposition yesterday, I might as well throw in my two cents on something else regarding disgraced Rockingham County Board of Education member Ron Price. It has to do with something that he wrote on his own blog last week…
“It should be acknowledged that public education is not a right but a privilege given to the youth of today to secure the future. Over 75% of the public paying for public education do not have students in the public schools but all pay for public education to provide a means of securing the blessings of liberty and prosperity for ourselves and our posterity.”
So now Ron Price, school board member, is telling us that our children have no right to public education.
Funny that he didn’t mind telling us that during last year’s school board race.
Ron Price has obviously ...
Here we go fast and furious: the copy of Transformers: The Score signed by composer Steve Jablonsky has just been listed on eBay!
Bidding starts at $25. Along with the signed CD of the Transformers orchestral soundtrack, you get a Certificate of Authenticity (I spent hours last night trying to figure out the right way to make that out, then wound up going for a pretty-much straightforward affair) verifying that this thing is what it claims to be and why we’re auctioning it. And just for fun, I’m gonna throw in a copy of the online petition – signed by Yours Truly – that may or may not have helped matters along but it sure seems to have raised a stink over the summer, didn’t it? 😛
100% of the proceeds from this sale will be going to help fund some music education projects in the public schools here ...
No joke: over the past 3 months my wife Lisa has been gone from home for roughly a month. All on trips to places where she’s been learning how to enhance her abilities as a music teacher. This past week she went to the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching out in Cullowhee (right across the road from Western Carolina University) to learn about the banjo and its history: from its origins in Africa to its adoption as a traditional Appalachian folk instrument.
Look! Lisa even posted about it on her blog!
She had a lot of fun. And she learned a lot about the banjo and how to apply it to her classes. Not to mention that she brought home a wazoo-load of CDs from bluegrass groups that came to the seminar like Carolina Chocolate Drops and Balsam Range.
In spite of its location, Lisa informs ...