The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Category: teaching

  • The madness of World War I

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    mongreldogs
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    This piece helps make clear how criminally incompetent the leaders of the Allies were during the opening years of World War I and how unworthy they were of the brave men who fought and died under their command.

  • One sentence can pull you out of an entirely fine essay

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    mongreldogs
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    I actually agree with most of what Fareed Zakaria writes in his Washington Post op-ed “Why America’s Obsession with STEM Education is Dangerous“.  We need balanced, robust, well-rounded education, not narrow business-driven training.  It will take many different vantages points to see solutions to the problems we face in this hardest century of human history.  Students…

  • College Admissions Hunger Games

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    mongreldogs
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    Today the NY Times published an Upshot op-ed called “For Accomplished Students, Reaching a Good College Isn’t as Hard as It Seems“.  It’s one of those article that seems to say more than it does.  It doesn’t actually support the conclusion it asserts.  Saying that roughly the same percentage of “top students” still get admission to…

  • The persistence of “factory”-style schools

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    mongreldogs
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    Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute asks “Why Do ‘Anti-Corporatists’ Defend Factory-Style Leadership?”  There’s a lot in there I’d like to respond to; here’s my first swing at it. It’s easy to blame hidebound educators for educational malaise, and some of the blame lands justly. But you cannot begin to understand the problem until…

  • Lunacon 2014 (2d): Gamification in Education

    Lunacon 2014 (2d): Gamification in Education

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    mongreldogs
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    Saturday 2 PM I sort of felt obligated to go to this panel (and the one on The Future of Education), seeing that I am a teacher and all. It was OK.  The title proved to be inaccurate: This was more about the use of existing games in a school setting.  Gamification usually refers to…

  • The Rainy Season (30 Days of Marc Cohn — Day 18)

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    mongreldogs
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    “The Rainy Season” The Rainy Season The Rainy Season is not a happy album and “The Rainy Season” is not a happy song. While Marc Cohn held a wide mix of songs and styles, Cohn’s sophomore album is generally dark. What comes through more than anything is how hard love can be to maintain, especially…

  • Lost You in the Canyon (30 Days of Marc Cohn – Day 1)

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    mongreldogs
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    “Lost You in the Canyon” Burning the Daze Marc Cohn’s third studio album seems, more or less, to be universally seen as his weakest, and I guess I mostly share that opinion.  But even so there are a number of quite good songs on it, and “Lost You in the Canyon” is one of them.…

  • Extremism begets extremism

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    mongreldogs
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    I would not normally be this way, but I’ll admit: The unyielding intransigence of the doomsday gun nuts is beginning to make me think it’s time to amend the Constitution and repeal the Second Amendment. If 2A means that no reasonable efforts can be made at all to reduce gun violence, then maybe it’s time for…

  • One party is not fit to govern

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    mongreldogs
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    Hint: It’s not the Democrats. According to a piece in Politico, significant numbers of Republican representatives are willing to trash the full faith and credit of the United States — and incidentally dynamite the entire international economic order — so that they can “send Pres. Obama a message”.  Some of them are more reasonable, according…

  • Announcing 30 Days of Marc Cohn

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    mongreldogs
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    Starting tomorrow, I’ll be sharing my “30 Days of Marc Cohn”, to get myself ready for the Valentine’s Day show I’ll be attending with Annie.  (And this message is mostly about testing some WordPress features I intend to use.)