Education Evolutions #37


IMG_4227 flickr photo by Jemimus shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

Select Readings and Thoughts on Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age

Well, another week with a delayed delivery. Despite the best of my hopes of getting this out on Saturday morning, my children’s soccer schedule again conspired against me. Add a visitor for the holiday weekend and time moved a bit more fluidly than normal

No real theme for the week, more a smattering of different items that build on broader themes that I have returned to often in the newsletter. The importance of art, our propensity to favor profits over people, and going gradeless are all areas that have gotten play here in previous issues.

The first item is long but well worth the click. Filled with exceptional multimedia elements and fascinating content, I suspect it will be in the mix for awards later in the year even. It is an impressive piece of digital journalism. Take the time to dig into it. You will not be disappointed. Pius, it came to me from one of you which makes it an even cooler inclusion.

So hopefully, this collection will give you some thoughtful enjoyment over the holiday. Enjoy the extended weekend, if you have it.


Here are three+ curated articles about education, technology, and evolutions in teaching.

This is Your Brain on ArtThe Washington Post – Sarah L. Kaufman (12-minute read)
This one comes courtesy of a reader of this newsletter and everyone should look at if for no other reason than to see an exquisite example of the kind of online publishing that the best newspapers, like The Washington Post, New York Times, and The Guardian can create. It is beautiful and a first class digital reading experience.

From a content experience, this piece highlights a host of things that we might have intuitively known but begins to introduce the scientific explanation and backing. The phenomenological investigation of the arts is nothing new but this article provides a window into some of the latest discoveries.

Perhaps most clever is how Swan Lake is used as a leitmotif through the whole feature, demonstrating the very neural turn-ons being highlighted. The whole work is as impressive as it is informative. If you only look at one article from this newsletter this week, this is the one.

Platforms Over PeopleA Long View on Education blog – Benjamin Doxtdator (7-minute read)
I have featured blogposts by Doxtador before in this newsletter because he often writes the kind of posts I wish that I had written. This is one of those posts. In a response to reading an article in MIT Technology Review, he keys in on one of the biggest challenges associated with artificial intelligence, the political one. It is the one that may get steamrolled in the rush for leverage and profits.

Looking at Accenture, Doxtador asks precisely the kinds of questions that we should always be asking, including “What returns will flow back to [citizens] instead of benefitting the corporation?” It would make a lot more sense to me if politicians began asking that rather than seemingly starting with how taxpayers can give the company a sweetheart deal. Companies will almost always leave if they think that they can get a better deal.

I am certainly more aligned with the idea that we should be mounting a resistance to surveillance capitalism which is a horse that has already left the barn and put in some distance before the chase. I have my doubts that it is even remotely likely to happen and the idea of nationalizing anything is definitely anathema to our current cultural climate. Still, referencing some spot-on observations by Noam Chomsky always catches my eye too.

The Gradeless Garden: Why natural, neutral, and nothing is not enough Identity, Education, and Power on Medium – Arthur Chiaravalli (7-minute read)
I have been highlighting some gradeless articles this year. The whole movement is interesting to me for a host of reasons. Yet, this post is one of the most honest and thoughtful examinations on the topic. Chiaravelli’s garden analogy is an apt one but it is the recognition that destroying-one-system-allows-another-one-to-emerge that is rarely addressed, if ever, by those advocating going gradeless.

Despite the best of intentions, academic spaces are never neutral spaces. They cannot be. As Chiaravelli understands, “our classrooms, our schools, our students, ourselves” are all contested ground, whether we like it or not. Furthermore, that ground is being increasingly contested with greater frequency and insidiousness.

What I like most of all about this is the interrogation at the heart of the discussion and realization that inclusion, like most of what we do in teaching is a process of constant construction. The work is so rarely ever done. The results cannot ultimately be controlled but the process and the building effort can continue, reach, grow, and improve.

Computer Science Students Head to Harvard University for CS50 Lecture

As September came to a close, 40 Hopkinton High School students trekked into Cambridge to hear a lecture by Harvard University’s David Malan. Already familiar with the professor from screening recorded lectures, the opportunity to see him live gave students a glimpse of both the teacher and the university setting. Dr. Malan created  CS50, an introductory computer science course, offered both on campus to enrolled Harvard students but also open to the world as a massive open online course for anyone interested via edX. It is currently the largest course offered at Harvard, Yale, and on the edX open online course platform. Two sections of Hopkinton’s Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science Principles were joined by students from the Mobile App Development and Game Design courses, as well as the Girls Who Code club on the visit Harvard. The live lecture in the Sanders Theater, located in the High Victorian Gothic Memorial Hall, was quite a change of pace from a typical class at the high school. “Seeing it live really made the computer science class come to life because we had just seen [Dr. Malan] on video,” sophomore Allison Fu said. “Now I can see him in person and directly engaging with the audience and the students actively participating in the lecture. That really made me enjoy it even more.” More akin to a televised event, a team of Harvard students recorded the lecture for the open online version of the course. The lecture is already available online. “It as really an enlightening experience with a ton of information and the lecturer was actually really nice too,” senior Kent Berlin said. During the lecture, Dr. Malan explored basic data structures in command line arguments. Students watched in the classic theater mixed with current Harvard students enrolled in the course. “I thought it was really a great opportunity for HHS students to witness the curriculum they will experience but in a college level lecture hall. I hope it shows them just how much they are capable of learning,” said librarian and computer science teacher Kirsten Fournier. The field trip offered multiple courses a chance to visit Harvard’s campus and gain a glimpse into what it might be like to potentially major in computer science as an undergraduate. “In our Mobile App Development class, we use MIT App Inventor, where they learn the basic concept of coding but it’s not the line by line experience of a higher level computer programming language,” Mike McFarland said. “It exposed the students to a real-world example of what a computer science degree entails and a look at the level detail involved.” Alison Fu said, “We are all interested in maybe having a computer science as a major in college. To go on this trip and have a feel of it really feels like and that was one of the main reasons I went on this trip.” Photo: Harvard University's CS50 Professor David MalanSince CS50 is also one of the AP approved curriculum providers for the high school Computer Science Principles course and exam, Fournier often uses or adapts lessons for use in the high school course. The public CS50 version includes publicly available tools like an integrated development environment (IDE), a debugger, and grading tool. The course material also integrates easily with GitHub, a popular Internet open source storehouse and hosting service for all kinds of coders. “The IDE that [CS50 course] provides is where we will be doing all of our programming,” Fournier explained. “Everyone can access it and easily submit their work through GitHub, which allows me to review and comment line by line.” “[Students] can also see their classmates code and problem sets because not everyone is going to solve a problem the same way,” Fournier said. “It’s the total package,” Fournier commented about the value of CS50. For students, the day out provided an experience not possible in a Hopkinton classroom or through video recordings. Students generally enjoyed themselves. “I thought it was really cool. I love Cambridge and the Boston area. And I thought the lecture was really interesting because I wanted to learn about CS and how its applied in a classroom setting, senior Ben Nigrosh said.

Education Evolutions #36


IMG_4227 flickr photo by Jemimus shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

Select Readings and Thoughts on Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age
Apologies for the delayed delivery this week. A combination other deadlines, more youth soccer than usual, and feeling a little under the weather all conspired to delay me a day.

Similar to last week’s mindfulness theme, this week must be more explicitly about race and class. Perhaps I am just responding to the popular zeitgeist or maybe I am just more ready to think and discuss those issues more lately. Neither issue ever gets enough attention, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, many of us conveniently brush away those elements of our society that may reveal its greatest ugliness. They are often too unpleasant to discuss in polite company. Yet they are far too real to deny, even if we have found ways, by and large, to insulate ourselves from them, both consciously or unconsciously.

So, this trio of articles show bravery and dig into some discomfort. The only way to have any chance of dealing with any challenge is by facing it directly and reflecting. I suppose that whole “unexamined life” tip from the ancient Greeks has been turning over in mind as well.

I have been repeating this part but I hope people like the new format and delivery. Also, I love the feedback and exchange of comments. That makes the effort even more worthwhile. If anyone comes across an article or even has a topic or theme they’d like to see shared let me know.


Here are three+ curated articles about education, technology, and evolutions in teaching.

James Baldwin’s Lesson for Teachers in a Time of Turmoil – The New Yorker – Clint Smith (10-minute read)
Over the summer I finally got the chance to watch to watch the James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro, which I highly recommend. It rekindled my interest in Baldwin’s work. There is a reason why he is resurfacing as a cultural agent at the minute. His courage and eloquence are unmistakable but his penetrating insights make him a formidable American intellectual that should be more widely read.

In this piece, Smith shares the poignancy of his annual experience of rereading Baldwin’s essay “A Talk to Teachers,” an additional item more than worth a look. Smith’s personal wrestling with introducing political discourse into his lessons is interesting enough. More interesting is how doing so is presented as a kind of subversive act which is telling.

It would be naive to ignore that at least a part of the standards movement reinforces an order, also keeping people in their place. While not entirely explicit, Smith’s recognition and reading of Baldwin “that the world was molded by people who came before, and that it can be remolded into something new” strikes a recognition of this consequence. Plus, I could not agree more that a teacher must help students confront not only the problems shaping the world but also challenge them to examine their own place in it.

Here are three+ curated articles about education, technology, and evolutions in teaching.

The Very Seriously Humorless Education of Students – radical eyes for equity blog – PL Thomas (4-minute read)
I am a frequent reader of PL Thomas and have featured him in previous issues of this newsletter. In this blogpost, his personal confession highlights something that is perhaps more common than we teachers can sometimes realize, a whole lot of students, and a fair number of adults, completely miss humor when reading. Part of this is humor can be difficult to identify on the page. However, a much bigger factor is the lack of preparation and even exposure to humor in text form.

Exposing students to a wide range of authors and texts is an absolute necessity to preparing readers of any sophistication. Yet, one of the well-known consequences of the standards reform is a narrowing of curriculum to serve the demands of accountability. Again, accountability regimes are excellent mechanisms establishing or preserving a social order.

Sadly, any student that struggles with reading is typically served up a heaping dose of humorless, text-prep texts. As if the remedy is more drill-and-kill readings that commit readicide against students, instead of embracing the struggle and guiding them through the hardest yards any reader sometimes face. It does not have to be that way but it often is. “Oh, but we do a satire unit, so we are all set.”

Second Guessing My Kids of Color? – The Tempered Radical blog – Bill Ferriter (8-minute read)
Another teacher brave enough to expose themselves a little in critical reflection, Ferriter’s admission is both heartfelt and instructive. His challenge in the opening note is probably even more so. Taking a hard look at himself and the subtle aspects of his interactions with students of color is an examination I hope would be a cause for pause and heightened awareness.

It is far too easy to put on blinders or even become defensive when confronted with the kind of uncomfortable situations presented by Ferriter. That is what is refreshing and brave about his admission. No one is perfect and conversations that involve race or even class need not be a zero-sum game. We are all human and make mistakes. Yet we can all benefit from remembering that being a good kind person is never a fixed state. It is a practice, in the truest sense of the word.

Ferriter’s willingness to throw caution to the wind and take a step forward in an effort to be better is admirable. His razor-sharp recognition, “imagine the impact that being doubted over and over again, day after day, year after year has on our kids of color” is enough to make this post worth the read. If you are interested in exploring conversations about race a little more, give this Jay Smooth TedTalk a look. It is one of the best takes on the topic I have ever encountered.