Around The Traps

Been plodding around the web following leads out from my Bloglines and thought I'd share a few of the ones that have caught my attention.

Rachel over at BardWired has a great post following the Tuanz Conference where Sheryl Nussbaum has been the keynote speaker. She reflects on that and raises points that I think are crucial, far more important than whether kids can master word processing or spreadsheets - "Our kids need to learn how to be socially responsible global citizens." - but airs the frustrations a few educators have when trying to discuss where education should be heading - "The discussion never really reached the point I thought it could have gone & seemed to revolve more about behavioural standards & management in schools and not so much the creation of media online and the potential issues surrounding this."

Dan Meyer continues to be a blogger who refuses to conform to any pre-conceptions I might have about young, mathematics teachers - his work is awesome and I can't remember being so reflective at that age (I was pretty immature but) and one of his latest posts confirms that. Read this. I've always been very dubious about this idea of teaching being a "calling" - I think Dan hits it on the head when he says "I just can't get into this idea that some people are "called" to teaching when I am struck in the face every day, every class period, by the obvious slices of our job." He peels off 17 off-the-cuff examples and could've added more. It makes sense. I'm a teacher and I'm good at teaching because so many of the things I'm good at are required in teaching - the slices. I just can't grasp a supreme being dictating that "Graham shalt be a teacher."

Finally, I found my way onto Nancy White's blog tonight where I was taken by this post. If you are even vaguely religious and likely to be turned off by my previous paragraph, read the post thoroughly. No wonder Nancy is spoken of so reverently in the TALO group.

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