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This is really just a quick question:

If you don’t care, why are you doing something in the first place?

 

 

So there’s this interesting thing that I see on twitter.

Sometimes an article will get posted by someone- linked by a big twitter account. And within moments, it’s being re-tweeted by all sorts of people. I’m a pretty quick reader, but one thing has become clear:

Many people don’t read the articles they are re-tweeting.

They base the re-tweet off the account of the person that posted it. Or the title of the article. Or something.

It is, I think, indicative, of a certain lack of diligence. Read the article. The whole thing. Add something to the conversation. React. Object. Endorse. But a blind re-tweet is just parroting. And about as useful.

The College Board and Texas Instruments are education profiteers.

Because the College Board has a near monopoly on SAT-type testing, and because they mandate that the only calculators that can use on SAT’s and AP’s and the like are Texas Instruments, they have managed to essentially price-fix the cost of TI calculators.

When I was in High School, years ago, my AP Stats course used TI-83 calculators. They were something like $130 then. They still list at $145, and can be had for $100. That’s an insane amount of money for something electronic with such limited capabilities. For the price of four TI-83’s, I can have an iPad- which can do so much more. It’s a crime.

And it’s been done intentionally. Texas Instruments has been able to keep the price of it’s calculators high via the College Board’s mandate that they are the only acceptable calculator for standardized testing. Our schools pay an absurd premium for sub-par equipment because of the equivalent of price fixing.

The industry of education is based not on providing the best possible product, but on producing the biggest possible profit.

Let me start off by being very clear: The teachers and students involved in these classes are not stupid. The existence of AP classes, as governed by the Advanced Placement wing of the College Board are an exercise in stupidity and branding.

The only requirement to get Advanced Placement credit is to score well on the exam. The classes are based on prepping for the exam. That’s it. And, worse yet, if you want to call your course “AP,” you have to submit and (wait for approval) your full year syllabus. If they don’t like it, they don’t approve it and you can’t call the course “AP.”

It’s a joke. It’s the College Board making a grab at controlling the curriculum. It’s gross and it’s wrong.

 

If you want to be good- and I mean, really, really, good- what you do has to take over everything in your life.

You have to breathe it.

Drink it.

Become it.

You have to go to bed thinking about it, and wake up early ready to do more. You have to stay up late and wake up early. You have to skip breakfast. Skip lunch.

Obsess.

The best classrooms have established a culture for themselves.

This is not an accident.

This culture stresses and rewards the ideals of the teacher, as shown to the students. The culture has to be- and this is key-  absolutely authentic for the teacher. It has to be real. It has to be genuine.

Be unabashed. Be bold. Be a dork. And do it every day, with a smile, and with no patience whatsoever for anything less than enthusiasm.

Just getting by will be the death of the culture of your classroom.

Getting multiple people all to share the same vision is a wildly difficult task.

The issue is compounded if people are passionate about the subject matter. Emotions become involved. Tempers flare. Rational thought takes a back seat.

It can be worth bringing in an objective unattached third party to make sure the relevant issue are the ones being debated.

I’ve been posting here every singe day.

And what’s strange is it’s getting easier.

I was always worried about having enough to talk about- that I’d run short of ideas. But the more I write here, the more ideas I have.

So do something every single day if you want to get better at it.

I’m back to keeping a list of books to read- physically written down in my daybook.

A daybook, you might be wondering, is a notebook you carry with you everyday. Everything goes in it- lists, projects, ideas, research, resources, diagrams, contacts- everything. You date the first entry. You date every entry after that. You number the pages and don’t tear any out.

When it’s done, you write the start and end dates on the spine, and file it in the archive. If you’re really good, you index it first, or at least tag the most relevant/important ideas and projects that come out of it.

The daybook becomes an extension of your brain. It allows you to always have someplace to capture your ideas- however small- and be able to get back to them.

It allows you to get back to good ideas that happen at the wrong time.

The first type is the sort where you can do things in chunks. Spend 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there, and make consistant (though small) progress.

The second type requires larger focused chunks- three to eight hours of hard deliberate time, all at once. Things not doable in smaller increments.

Make sure you identify which of the two you’re embarking on.