1/7 Time for my periodic reminder about one of the most important educational research findings of the 20th century: the Eight-Year Study.
Back in the 1930s, 30 high schools around the U.S. turned traditional practice on its head, especially for college-bound students... 2/7 In place of grade-driven, teacher-controlled, fact-based instruction, the learning was interdisciplinary, conceptual, experiential, collaborative, often ungraded, and fashioned jointly by teachers and students...

1/6 Nuggets from Postman & Weingartner's classic book "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" (), which I recently reread:

- Why do students almost never take notes on what other students say, no matter how insightful their comments are?amzn.to/3aQ6j7t 2/6
- "There is no way to help a learner to be disciplined, active, and thoroughly engaged unless *he* perceives a problem to be a problem or whatever is to-be-learned as worth learning, and unless he plays an active role in determining the process of solution."

1/5 It's possible to predict people's authoritarian/racist attitudes just by knowing what they value most in children: obedience, respect for elders, and good manners ... as opposed to curiosity, independence, and considerateness... 2/5 Now before you indignantly insist that the two constellations aren't mutually exclusive, political scientist Karen Stenner's research found that these values do in fact cluster in two distinct sets that are negatively correlated and predictive of opposed worldviews.

1/5 Bad teaching doesn't just happen. Nor is it usually due to defects in individual teachers. Rather, it is driven - indeed, practically demanded - by systemic factors. For example... 2/5 If students are under pressure to beat their classmates for some artificially scarce recognition, it's going to be hard for the teacher to figure out how their minds work; they'll be throwing her off by trying to impress her with how smart they are.

1/4 Each of us was once completely vulnerable and dependent on someone else. On an unconscious level, some people fear that once the thin veneer of adulthood is shattered, time will rush backward and they will revert to being powerless. 2/4 They deal with that fear by pretending they’re invulnerable as adults. Because it’s terrifying to be out of control, they need to believe they’re always in control. Alas, that can easily turn into a need to have control *over* others - for example, their children.

1/5 In a recent tweet, I suggested that presenting students with a list of rules & punishments on the 1st day of class might not be the best way to get them excited about learning. Elsewhere I've written about how to invite students to reflect together (in a class meeting)... 2/5 ...about "what kind of classroom we want to have" and how to make that happen. This is not only more respectful but more effective at creating a productive climate for learning.
Alas, many replies to my tweet suggest that this option is unfamiliar to many educators...

1/2 Betteridge's Law holds that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered with "no."
A few of many examples from this past year:
* New Yorker 1/21: "Have We Already Been Visited by Aliens?"
* New Yorker 8/21: "Did Spacemen Build the Pyramids?" 2/2
* Education Digest 3/21: "Can Charter Operators Turn Around District Schools?"
* NY Times 7/21: "Workers' Financial Stress Is Rising. Can Corporate Programs Help?"
* NewsNation 9/21: "Is the Worst of the Pandemic Behind Us?"

1/ Most progressive educators are not hopeless Romantics who believe children always know what’s best & therefore the adult’s job is to get out of the way so they can educate themselves. Yet this caricature is drawn by many traditionalists so as to discredit progressives... 2/ This sets up a convenient dichotomy: We're asked to choose between touchy-feely, loosy-goosy, fluffy, fuzzy, undemanding progressivism based on hippie idealism...& an old-fashioned defense of Academic Excellence based on a courageous willingness to face unpleasant realities...

1/7 As the years go by, fewer educators hear about one of the most important research findings of the 20th century, known as the Eight-Year Study. Back in the '30s, 30 high schools around the US turned traditional practice on its head, especially for college-bound students... 2/7 In place of grade-driven, teacher-controlled, fact-based instruction, the learning was interdisciplinary, conceptual, experiential, collaborative, often ungraded, and fashioned jointly by teachers and students...

1/6 The cost of attending "high-achieving" schools: A review of research shows that the "unrelenting pressures [in these schls] to accomplish ever more" & be the best --> rates of anxiety & depression an astounding 6-7 times the average for kids that age: is.gd/6q2311 2/6 SES is clearly correlated here, but, interestingly, some studies show that the psychological damage "likely derive[s] not from affluence of students’ own families but rather from affluence of their neighborhoods & their schools"...

1/8 More pushback from experts against the "#ScienceOfReading" propaganda campaign. From a Literacy Research Assn. report: "The idea that there is a 'settled science' that has determined the only approach to the teaching of reading is simply wrong": is.gd/XpHvYZ... 2/8 ..."Evidence does not justify the use of a heavy & near-exclusive focus on phonics instructn, either in regular classrms, or for [kids having trouble] learning to read."
Likewise, "neither the nature nor the existence of dyslexia is settled science": is.gd/eWFWht

1/5 Bad teaching doesn't just happen. Nor is it usually due to defects in individual teachers. Rather, it is driven - indeed, practically demanded - by systemic factors.
For example... 2/5 If students are under pressure to beat their classmates for some artificially scarce recognition, it's going to be hard for the teacher to figure out how their minds work; they'll be throwing her off by trying to impress her with how smart they are.

1/4 Just published: perhaps the definitive meta-analysis of research on student motivation, comprising 344 samples with a total of nearly a quarter-million kids. Clear confirmation of the benefits (for both academic achievement & well-being) of intrinsic motivation... 2/4 ...and "identified regulation" (kids regarding what they're doing as meaningful even if it isn't thrilling) - and also of the harms of extrinsic motivation (earn rewards or avoid punishments) & "introjection" (basically, internalized compulsion): is.gd/46g3Hx ...

1/5 Many members of the fascist mob were comfortably middle class; quite a few were local GOP officeholders. And here's a fact about ALL the people who demanded that the results of the election be overturned so a dangerous demagogue could stay in power, who credulously accept... 2/5 ...lunatic conspiracy theories, who wave a flag that glorifies slavery. It's also true of the 127 Senators & Reps. who continued trying to subvert the election after the siege:
Every one of them grew up with parents and teachers.
So how were these people raised and taught?

It's possible to predict people's authoritarian/racist attitudes just by knowing what they value most in children -- obedience, respect for elders, and good manners - vs. curiosity, independence, and considerateness... ..."Much of what we think of as racism [or] political & moral intolerance is more helpfully understood as ‘difference-ism'...an overwhelming desire to establish & defend *some* collective order of oneness & sameness” -political scientist Karen Stenner: is.gd/74imyY...

1/5 My unpublished letter to the NYT regarding its May 1 story about resistance to suspending grades:
Wildly unequal circumstances while children learn at home is a persuasive reason to suspend traditional grading. Parents who oppose this seem to fear that two things may happen.. 2/5 in the absence of grades: It will be harder to document the superiority of their own children relative to everyone else's, and students won't be motivated to do schoolwork.
The first claim is morally troubling because it implies that the school's primary mission is to...

1/9 As a recovering hot-shot high-schl debater, I can tell you this essay's critique is spot on but its prescription misses the point: is.gd/EGPxys.
Debate teaches a cynical relativism: one belief is no better than another b/c any can be defended if you're clever... 2/9 A premium is placed on not having any convictions because that could interfere with your ability to win on both sides of the issue. Plus, the goal is not to be right but to SOUND persuasive and/or to talk so fast that an opponent can't respond to all of your arguments...

1/10 Trump’s breathtakingly cruel new #ImmigrationPolicy that excludes the neediest is essentially a codification of his personal inability to feel compassion or empathy. Thus, one man’s psychological deficits will become the law of the land... 2/10 In fact, many of Trump’s positions are best viewed through a psychological (vs. political/economic) lens. Ex. A: the hyperpatriotism he fell back on to reframe his racist “go back” sneers to four minority Congresswomen (is.gd/1hIX2K)...

Numerous news stories, it occurs to me, point to a similar strategy of shameless strategic misrepresentation. In each case, people pursuing an unpopular agenda cynically pretend they’re really doing something else…. /1 Example 1: Republicans restricting voting rights to create obstacles for those unlikely to support GOP candidates but insisting their motive is to curb "fraud" (even though this problem is virtually nonexistent - is.gd/VaEBLg) /2