Click here to read this mailing online.
"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
Sentences Of The Week geralt / Pixabay
I thought readers might, or might not, find this new regular post useful. Each week, I highlight several sentences, with links to their sources, that I find interesting/concerning/useful. And they may, or may not, be directly connected to education. I may also include my own comments or related links. This regular post will join my other regular ones on teaching ELLs, education policy, Artificial Intelligence, infographics, and Pinterest highlights, not to mention sharing of my regular Education Week posts. Here are this week’s sentences: For all the accusations that the right-wing has made about schools being sites of leftist brainwashing, the only way they actually envision education (and by extension ed-tech) is as a system of behavioral engineering and ideological adherence. It’s no surprise then that in all these private tech-heavy ventures, there’s a total rejection of the shared experience of school, in all its messy flaws — school as civics, school as democracy, schools as us. “We’re at the beginning of a redefinition of what an author is,” said Mr. Allary, adding that writers would start using A.I., much as Renaissance artists worked with entire teams of people. This reimagining, he said, would mean doing away with “the romantic image of the writer alone with his pen.” Instead of thinking of teaching as an isolated activity that is “delivered,” we should think of the ability to teach someone an entirely new and novel concept as a superpower. Effective teachers naturally do things when explaining a concept that nonteachers don’t. U.S. teachers, in particular, tend to work both longer hours overall each week and dedicate more time to classroom instruction than the OECD average. Several experts also said that schools should think beyond test scores and focus on making learning less boring and more engaging — less passive listening and memorizing for tests, for example, and more open-ended research and project-based learning. “How do we get an education system that promotes high academic achievement, but is also a place where kids really want to be?” said Chris Torres, an associate professor at the University of Michigan. The effect of high screen time on children is as significant as parental behaviour and premature birth, if not greater, a global study has found. But to improve these schools we cannot succumb to fatalism, throw up our hands, and declare the whole system rotten because it didn’t perfectly serve the needs of our child. The problem is that cultures that celebrate exceptional intelligence eventually begin to mistake intelligence for infallibility. Anything worth remembering came from a person who did not know where she or he was going until arriving. No shortcut gets you there: the process leaves a trace. “I don’t know,” Angel replied before bursting into tears. He stared ahead stoically and continued to cry, eventually saying: “I have no one. I have nothing.”
     “Civics For All,” A NYC Schools Program, Is An Amazing Resource
I can’t believe I’m just now learning about Civics For All, a program of New York City public schools. I read about it in a New York Times article last month, A New York City Comic Book Offers Tips on Rights and ICE Encounters. The multilingual comic book referenced in the headline is great, and comes with a lesson plan, too. It’s a good supplement to the “red cards” (You Probably Know About These “Red Cards” But, If You Don’t, Here’s Where You Can Order Them). But if you go the Civics For All site, it has tons of other multilingual comics on social studies and civic participation issues. One I particularly liked is called A Story in Every Object!, which could easily be used as a model for students to create their own. I’m adding this info to several “Best” lists, including: The Best Websites For Teaching & Learning About U.S. History The Best Websites For Learning About Civic Participation & Citizenship  The Best Resources For Teaching About Elections Yamu_Jay / Pixabay
The mid-term elections are coming up. Here are some resources for how to teach about them: Teach the 2026 Midterm Elections is from The NY Times Learning Network. Teaching Resources for US Elections is from Facing History. Election Central is from PBS.  You might also be interested in: The Best Websites For Learning About Civic Participation & Citizenship The Best Resources & Ideas For Teaching About Current Events The Best Posts & Articles On How To Teach “Controversial” Topics The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change  AI Is Making The Student Motivation Challenge More Visible – Here Are Some Effective Strategies For Creating The Conditions Where Motivation Can Flourish
As regular readers know, I post about student motivation a lot. Schools Have a Motivation Problem — AI Is Making It Impossible to Ignore the headline of a recent article in The 74 that highlights how the advent of Artificial Intelligence may be making the student motivation issue even more challenging. Here are some resources that might help teachers: I’ve written four books on student motivation – the most recent is The Student Motivation Handbook. I need to update this post, but it’s relatively up-to-date: A Collection Of My Best Resources On Student Motivation The Best Posts & Articles On Student Engagement
 Hamas Attacked Israel Three Years Ago On This Day – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources About The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Hamas attacked Israel three years ago today. You might be interested in The “Best” Resources For Learning About The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and The “Best” Ideas For Teaching About The U.S., Israeli/Iran Conflict  More Recent Articles
|
