StudentsLast suggests the future of teaching in this essay.
Things are so nutty these days that I must warn you. This is satire.
Archives for category: Humor
Students Last has been thinking about how teachers can solve poverty once and for all.
Please read Students Last, who noticed the absence of any real, actual teachers at the New York Times conference on “Schools of Tomorrow.”
He says there is a rumor that NBC’s “Medication Nation” might invite a physician, to add to the panel of pharmaceutical giants.
A press release describes a shocking new initiative: the New York City Department of Education will pilot Pearson’s new in-the-womb test for fetuses.
The esteemed research entity and public relations firm Students Last was first to break the news.
Lighten up.
Edushyster writes brilliant satirical pieces about those wacky reformers.
In this essay, Edushyster asks whether why so many New York Times columnists have swallowed (or inhaled) the elixir of reformy ideas.
I discovered a new blogger who is spot-on: EduShyster
He or she seems to be writing from Massachusetts and has a wicked sense of humor.
This post is called “The Scratch n’ Sniff Guide to Phony Education Reform Groups.”
There are certain tell-tale signs. For example, no one in a leadership role ever went to a public school. Its “experienced” teachers had two years in TFA. Its policy agenda is exactly the same as ALEC.
This post challenges a charter cheerleader to find a single charter school in Massachusetts with the same demographics as Lawrence and a low attrition rate and high scores.
This blogger has wit, style, and knowledge, a powerful combination.
And to show my exquisite sense of political balance, here is a guide to reform groups by the Center for Education Reform, which advocates for vouchers, charters, homeschooling, online for-profit virtual schools–anything but public schools.
Gary Stager is visiting a tiny nation abroad, whose name I can’t spell without peeking, and it has adopted a new Constitution.
Gary says that teachers could save a lot of time if they simply adopted the Constitution of Uzupis and used it as their class rules.
In tough times, it is important to laugh.
Laughter is good for you.
Some people say it extends your life.
If you see any great videos or websites that help educators laugh at the absurdities now piled on their heads, please send them to me and I’ll share them.
The “hero” of this website is a make-belief upper-crust reformer who is totally clueless.
Enjoy.
I am often asked what teachers and parents can do to get across how absurd the “reform” ideas are.
Most important is to reach the public, to enable the public to understand what is happening, and how little evidence there is for any of the reformers’ claims or their strategies.
But here is another tack.
The most effective tool of all may be humor.
The New South Wales Teachers Federation in Australia has begun to create videos to spoof the nonsense that they are dealing with, some of it part of the Global Education Reform Movement (as Pasi Sahlberg of Finland named it) and some imported from the USA.
This video is a mock press conference in which “government officials” explain their verbose and nonsensical plans. It is very funny!
I understand that their next video will feature an interview with an American “education expert” on the glories of privatization.
We really must learn from our friends in Australia. Once something becomes ridiculous, it is hard to take it seriously.
Diane Ravitch's blog 