Follow along. Or contribute. Or both. Whatever. Welcome to DIY journalism, folks. 

Your kid is not an empty storage container, ready to be filled with curricular content 

It's positive example time 

Celeblogging 

PhiloJo 

Earth to Earth! Come in, Earth! 

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I know it's popular and trendy to rebel against everything and everyone associated with the word "public" or "government", but please know that some people actually do learn in school, even if they also learn at home and at other times and places. What I disagree with is the use of the test scores as an excuse to bash the schools. In our state (Virginia) the political discourse is heavily slanted against all public works, and the public schools are, naturally, a favorite target of the right wingers. But the schools have done marvelous work with my children, a testament not only to the individuals who worked directly with them, but also to the unfashionable administrators who support them.

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- That it's possible to read and write just fine and yet score at both in percentiles between zero and two.

- That without parents who believe you're smart while the school doesn't, you'll get shoved off to the "vocational" high school to learn car repair and other "industrial" skills.

- That school is sports and such variables as intellegence and achievement are all about scores.

- That there is a moral order in school, ranging from bad to average to good to better and best.

- That good students get rewarded and bad students get punished.

Among other things.

That said, I regard teaching as one of the highest callings among all the professions; and I believe great teachers and supportive adminstrators make all the difference in the world. That they have to suffer from the politics that surround them (and it's flat-out brutal) is one of the great persistent tragedies of the last century and more.

So here's a toast to Pastor Schmidt, wherever he is, for being the first teacher who ever encouraged me to write.

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When a story starts in mainstream media which cuts across blogger opinion, it is likely that a blogosphere story gets started on three or four blogs almost at the same time and sometimes even more. Then within a day, the story becomes more focused with each of the initiators acknowledging the other comments on the other blogs and adding further to the story.

Read more in: http://www.microdoc-news.info/blogger/2003/05/20.html#a636

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Yeah, like you're going to do this...

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Curiously, however, Google News refuses to include our stuff. They've had a variety of reasons, none of them particularly relevant. We've even altered the presentation of some of our pages per their suggestions, and they ultimately just come up with another excuse to say "No." I'm not sure if it's because they somehow think we're a weblog (even though it's VERY obvious we're not), or because in some prior life, I alienated one of the honchos at Google. Regardless, it's very frustrating.

Our relationship with blogs is also hit-and-miss. We do have a couple of blog-like sections of the site, but it's really not our primary function. So weblogs only tend to find us when we put out a piece that gets so much press that they find us through links from more traditional sites.

One instructive situation for us was a series of pieces I did in February on the reasons why Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC. I had an exclusive story, and really got a lot of attention from the mainstream press. A couple of mentions in the Washington Post, the Nation, a score of other newspapers...just a lot of traffic from a lot of new places.

Interestingly, most of the wblogs who wrote about the articles linked to the mainstream press coverage of my article. So I found lots of references along the lines of "The Chicago Tribune reports that AllYourTV.com gained access to some memos...." It was as if people couldn't be bothered to spend two minutes finding the original source.

This whole discussion of traffic and links and all is a lot more complex than just asking newspapers to open up their archives. But suspect that's what we'll all be talking about. Since it reinforces the average blogger's preconceived notions about the cluelessness of the mainstream media.

Rick Ellis www.AllYourTV.com

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Because, at this point, “stunt philosophy” is still a Googasm or whatever the fuck we called it (awhile back, when it was all the rage) when a search for two words brings one result.

I think you’re thinking of a Googlewhack. But technically, a Googlewhack needs to be two words, not a two-word phrase. So, Googasm the latter can certainly be.

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I don't think you learned any of those things from standardized tests. You learned them from a school system which wasn't optimized for teaching. Standardized tests (more accurately, the use to which such tests are put) are only a symptom, not a cause.

Granted, I speak as someone who had the opposite experience from you--I can't recall a standardized test (other than the ASVAB) where I ever scored below the top two or three percent, and I was usually in the top percentile.

What I had to learn was that I was not as smart as the tests made me appear...a hard lesson, though salutary in the long run.

Now, despite the tests being more an effect than a root cause, taking them out would be a major advance--I'm convinced the educational system is not civilized enough to use standardized tests in a fair way--but some other idiocy would quickly take their place.

I'm currently in a race with my beautiful wife to see whether I can reach my forty-fifth birthday before she gives birth to our first child, so this is a matter of life and death importance to us.

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