tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post5486946494347347104..comments2024-03-26T23:57:42.268-04:00Comments on SpeEdChange: for whom the medium is the message...irasocolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01412837280249622430noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-13782198787791151522011-12-31T14:38:41.203-05:002011-12-31T14:38:41.203-05:00An A.P. telling me last year that students couldn&...An A.P. telling me last year that students couldn't have laptops on their desks/tables during "reading time" was one of the big reasons I'm no longer working in just one classroom. It has personally worked out to be one of the best moves of my life. I'm finding that my intention to have a direction like that be delivered to as few teachers as possible in the future is actually quite widely shared in the world beyond that building and district.<br /><br />My own kids got new iPad 2s as Christmas gifts (generous relatives) to accompany their Windows computers, Android smart phones, iPod touches, PSPs and Wii. They both still haul around way too many books in their backpacks and have way more print magazine subscriptions than I could imagine when I was selling GRIT subscriptions 50 years ago.Dan McGuirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17165245665212961209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-20365886728146732582011-12-28T17:40:00.621-05:002011-12-28T17:40:00.621-05:00Ira, this resonated so much. I got delightfully lo...Ira, this resonated so much. I got delightfully lost along the way in the many stories you link to and isn't that a point as well. The narrowness of the Common Core with its one method of reading (close reading)echoes the points you make in the post--as if there was one way to read and children should endure learning that way for 13 very long years. Reducing reading to 'being a detective' is foolish at best.<br /><br />There's little reference to multiple types of text in the CCS and there is the presumption that book can substitute rather easily and exclusively for text. There is also the deliberate reduction in 'fictional' text (I keep circling back to essays I read that include, in fact often rest on--'fictional [or narrative] techniques), and wonder if the CCS folk actually read/listen/view essay. They seem rather limited in their views.<br /><br />And perhaps that is a point too. Imperialism rests on limiting people's faith and language. The English Penal laws in Ireland sought to both. How we name matters and limiting the means to do so is nothing less than criminal.<br /><br />So yes, tell stories. Receive stories and do it in ways that make sense. The only hierarchy among those ways are the one's we apply. None are better than any other.Mary Ann Reillyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14349201167828984708noreply@blogger.com