tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:45:26 +0000religionOther ThoughtsArtEducationFamilyPoliticsAndrew Ordover's ramblings on writing, teaching, living, raising children, and whatever else comes to mindhttp://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Agathon)Blogger308125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-6206870169373890607Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:09:00 +00002011-12-19T09:10:18.805-05:00ArtA free audio recording of the first chapter of my mystery novel, Cool for Cats (performed by me), is up on the Forgotten Classics podcast. Stop on by and check it out. Many thanks to Julie Davis for posting and sharing it.http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/12/can-you-hear-me-now.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-3321402073934987231Sun, 18 Dec 2011 17:43:00 +00002011-12-18T12:49:58.123-05:00PoliticsArtAs a child of the 1970s, someone who became aware of the larger world during Vietnam and Watergate, I'm not the kind of person who has a lot of heroes. It's a character flaw of my generation that we assume clay feet instantly, and spend most of our time searching for them, to prove ourselves right. We expect to be disappointed, so we make damned sure we will be disappointed. And if we're foolish http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/12/living-in-truth.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-5652535418722389134Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:49:00 +00002011-11-16T09:49:25.575-05:00Grant Wiggins has a thoughtful blog post up today about academic standards--the third in a series. In this post, he discusses the uselessness of the single grade, either the "A" of traditional grading or the "meets standard" of today's report cards. He proposes a different way of evaluating student work, which is multifaceted and, for a change, useful to students, parents, and teachers.  It is http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/11/elephant-in-room.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-5652678044123632285Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:44:00 +00002011-11-10T12:44:17.897-05:00ArtI am giving away another copy of "Cool for Cats" on Goodreads.com.  The giveaway begins on Monday, November 14 and closes on Monday, November 28.  Stop by and sign up for a free book! <!-- Show static html as a placeholder in case js is not enabled --> .goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/11/giveaway-2.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-3192901106875618988Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:40:00 +00002011-11-07T16:40:50.010-05:00EducationFrom Chris Tessone at NRO Online: The liberal arts were once about studying how to live, informed by literary, philosophical, and historical accounts of how others conducted their lives. Students took a coherent set of core courses and immersed themselves in the Western canon. The academics of today instead offer programs catering to teenage sloth and narcissism, giving kids and their helicopterhttp://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-do-you-really-feel.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-1941431123177814399Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:06:00 +00002011-11-07T11:06:29.887-05:00EducationThere's a lot of talk these days about the "flipped classroom," the idea that we can use technology, specifically streaming video, to accomplish more of the "information download" of our curriculum at home, where students can learn at their own pace, their own way, re-reading or re-watching as often as they need to, without holding up the rest of the class, and then use more of our in-class time http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/11/fertile-ground.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-4295072380272771726Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:47:00 +00002011-10-23T12:47:45.938-04:00ArtThere is plenty to wonder and dream and think about, where Shakespeare and his work are concerned, but whether or not the man called "Shakespeare" actually wrote the plays attributed to him seems to be the question of the hour, right now. Following in the glorious footsteps of Oliver Stone, who claimed to understand American History better than actual historians because he was...well, a famous http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/10/looking-for-mysteries-where-there-are.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-7936564732559801694Sun, 16 Oct 2011 22:33:00 +00002011-10-16T18:33:05.171-04:00Other ThoughtsArtWhen I was a kid--around 10 or 11, probably--I used to have a tree in our backyard that was my hiding place. It sat against our back fence, its trunk buried in hedges. It wasn't a very big tree, but it was easily climbable, and once you were up in its lower branches, you were invisible to the world. When I needed to get out from under Family and all the cares and woes of being 10, it's where I http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/10/in-search-of-hundred-acre-wood.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-7345551011953436804Wed, 12 Oct 2011 23:28:00 +00002011-10-13T14:32:58.382-04:00My mystery novel,  Cool for Cats, is finally available for the Kindle. $4.99 and it's yours! http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/10/fire-up-kindle.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-2868938891190199633Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:25:00 +00002011-10-02T10:24:46.838-04:00Go to Goodreads to enter your name for a free book drawing! <!-- Show static html as a placeholder in case js is not enabled --> .goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; background: white; } .goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; } .http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/09/free-book.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-5127025945019471840Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:44:00 +00002011-09-20T14:59:11.604-04:00ArtInstitutions and I don't seem to get along. I don't know why.I don't think of myself as a troublemaker, or an agitator, or an anarchist, but somehow, time and again, I find myself alienated from whatever organization or structure I'm trying to be a part of--cast out or abandoned or just annoyed enough to go it alone.It happened to me in high school, when my small cadre of friends and I got fed uphttp://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/09/going-solo.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-4773135231631278087Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:22:00 +00002011-08-10T10:47:40.913-04:00EducationI believe in the promise of online education. I really do. I think it has the potential to radically transform the way we teach and learn, by knocking down the walls of time and space and challenging every assumption we have about how schooling must be done. However... When Michael Horn talks about how online teaching can change the role of the teacher and liberate her from a wide range of http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/08/sugar-candy-mountain.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-2754640402706459360Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:54:00 +00002011-07-28T10:14:16.593-04:00EducationThe alarmists are all atwitter about this idea of "outsourcing memory" to the Internet, as detailed in this report published in Science. We won't know anything anymore! We'll lose our ability to remember anything! We'll Google knowledge forever!Well. Maybe we will. We have the ability to be profoundly stupid, after all. But call it a possible result, not a necessary one. It all depends on what http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/07/outsourcing-trivia.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-6295705922275273192Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:34:00 +00002011-06-30T11:09:38.079-04:00EducationIntrigued by a tweet, I clicked over to this article on "The Most Influential Educator in America." The list of nominees is not, in itself, controversial--although clearly, some people are confusing the word "influential" with "beneficial." Apparently, a person can't be influential if you think she's wrong.What I found interesting was the dialogue below the article, in "comments." Someone disses http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/06/threat-of-influence.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-2006000007943205946Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:31:00 +00002011-06-23T16:57:37.897-04:00ArtEducationNo.Unless you're talking about one particular liberal arts major who's done something horrible and deserving of death. In which case: Maybe. But if you're talking about the major in general, concpetual terms, then No.This question is the basis for an article in Salon. It includes many, many face-slappable moments. Or, at the very least, moments where you want to hit your own head against a http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/06/should-we-kill-liberal-arts-major.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-2048820235291802420Mon, 16 May 2011 13:47:00 +00002011-05-16T10:14:22.543-04:00PoliticsEducationThe never-ending tug-of-war over education reform continues, with the Common Core side digging in its heels to avoid getting pulled into the mud pit by newly energized small-government types. It's the usual policital arguments over regulation-vs-trust-the-professionals and activist-federal-government-vs-state-sovereignty. And as with all the other areas of life over which these dichotomies have http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/05/one-way-or-another.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-968250238983223619Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:25:00 +00002011-04-22T08:26:12.457-04:00religionPoliticsI’ve been renting a room here in the DC area while looking for a larger place for the family, who will join me this summer. The woman from whom I’m renting has been unemployed and out of luck for a long time, and cannot pay her own rent without filling up all of the beds in the apartment. So she rents out my little room, and she rents out the master bedroom, and she sleeps on the sofa. It’s not http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/04/laws-for-thee-but-not-for-me.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-5630658552622112715Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:38:00 +00002011-04-19T09:48:09.285-04:00Other ThoughtsFamilyEducationA colleague at work put his wife and children on a plane this morning; they’re off to see family for a week. People at the office joke with him about enjoying the bachelor life while they’re away. He stands by my desk and tells me this, slumping a little. “You know,” he says, “I got married for a reason.”Five years ago, when The Wife left me behind in New York to pack boxes and get the house soldhttp://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/04/tuesday-morning-rumblings.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-8076158275253131256Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:33:00 +00002011-04-11T09:10:16.997-04:00Other ThoughtsEducationJay Matthews has a good article on the dangers of national mandates in education and how short-sighted and overly prescriptive they can be. But I think it misses an underlying point--a prime cause, if you will. How can we stop penduluming back and forth between "teachers are idiots--tell them what to do" and "teachers are saints--leave them alone"? Both arguments are foolish and uninformed, and http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/04/bad-faith.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-8354433498070210012Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:34:00 +00002011-04-04T14:59:28.224-04:00EducationFirst off, a question: does anyone really think that old, intractable problems can be solved by the stakeholders re-stating the same positions they've been stating for at least a generation? What if they state them more angrilly? I don't think so either. So how about, when we hear old, stale, useless positions being stated for the umpteenth time, we just dismiss them immediately and say "Next!" "http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/04/whats-bad-teacher.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-2131110505737423811Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:56:00 +00002011-03-22T08:36:38.466-04:00EducationThe phrase “life-long learner” has been kicking around for quite some time in Ed World, but we’re finally in a position to be able to do something about it. The question is whether we’re going to bother.You can certainly be a life-long learner without any help. You always could be. You could go to the library; you could go to the Learning Annex; you could go live in the woods with a copy of “http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/03/life-long-learners.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-8938071232491536441Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:22:00 +00002011-03-21T14:37:56.015-04:00EducationAnother review of the current landscape of confusion and fear. Why must it be so?Having a common curriculum will not make us automatons. It will not make your sweet little red state children into socialists, or your sweet little blue state children into right-wing ideologues.Knowing the same things is not the same thing as thinking the same things.Having a common background is no guarantee of http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/03/fear-of-common-curriculum.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-7247548474687463737Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:51:00 +00002011-03-14T09:11:17.070-04:00ArtEducationI was invited, this past weekend, to a gathering of folks working in and around the federal government who meet once a month to share good food and read poetry to each other. It was one of the nicest evenings I've spent in a long time.The group has been meeting every month, in one form or another, for close to 40 years. They work in various branches of government--some more tangentially than http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/03/life-need-not-be-lived-entirely-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-8173007738148542797Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:18:00 +00002011-03-03T10:38:23.413-05:00EducationI've seen some tweets and blog posts and articles recently wondering where all this Anger At Teachers is coming from. I think Checker Finn is on to something: I don't think it's about summer vacations, or getting off work at 3PM, or any of that surface stuff. I think it's the perception that teachers are not held accountable in any of the ways the rest of us are. It's not that teachers don't http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-so-much-anger.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286850597195008478.post-1667365626218145378Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:07:00 +00002011-03-01T08:27:33.047-05:00PoliticsEducationI don't remember a single fact that any teacher taught me. Not one. And I've had a lot of teachers over the years.But I remember those teachers--many of them--and I remember quite a lot that they taught me. I remember ideas. I remember distinct ways of thinking about the world and unique ways of perceiving the world. Sometimes I learned how a person in a particular field saw the world--a http://agathon-sbh.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-is-teacher-for.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Agathon)0