"Reading Don't Fix No Chevys"

As an 8th grade special education teacher, this article made me realize (again) that many students have different talents. I have to tap into my students interests and current skills to enhance their learning of the English curriculum.

According to Csikszentmihalyi's study the comments made by the young men all dealt with the feelings they had when they were competent and appreciated. When they were in control of themself, they had a general feeling of well-being. The one comment that hit home for me was from Buster - he was the prize winning mountain biker when talking about the feeling when he was performing mechanical work. "If, say I'm, say I'm replacing my exhaust and my dad's ther eteaching me how to do it and that' ssomething i can learn and then I know and I can pass that on to my kids and it's just something, it's kind of like attained knowledge I guess that you can get from you know, just from doing."

I teach mostly boys, I need to be able to tap into teaching English by "just from doing." I know with this particular group, language is difficult for them. I have to disguise teaching the skills they need to acquire so they feel competent and with control over their learning. This year will hopefully, be in the Flow for them during English as well as myself when we all work together to meet the curriculum.

But, "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys", but hopefully, reading about skateboarding and dirt biking will help my students enjoy English more and feel capable of meeting the curriculum while in a Flow.

180 Days

Who would have thunk it? When you really allow ourselves to look how 180 of instruction is spent - we realize there isn't 180 days of actual instruction. I feel this is accurate. Even at a middle school - we don't have mid-terms, but we do spend time on testing, housekeeping - lockers, books, procedures, etc. field trips, assemblies, etc. etc.... I feel that we need to take a better look at some of the ways we currently run our schools to see if we can add more instructional time to the school year. For example, have orientation for students prior to school starting to get the housekeeping items out of the way - handing out books, lockers, etc. After their initial year in a school - this could be eliminated. We can re-evaluate the assemblies and field trips. Are they all worth it? Let's hope. Perhaps giving students time to review on their own, instead of playing review games and reviewing for tests/quizzes a whole period before the test. We can use the internet similar to Blackboard to have student post questions, for the students and teacher to review. Blogging seems to work fine too. Wow. I never really thought that 180 days goes so quickly.

Saber-Tooth Curriculum

What a metaphor! New-Fist could be considered one of the original founders of education. It is interesting to see how education changes because of demographic changes. Initially, New Fist looked at ways to help make life better for himself, his family, and his group. A curriculum was developed and implemented. The curriculum was a success initially. "But conditions changed, and life which had once been so safe and happy in the cave-realm valley became insecure and disturbing." New educators wanted to make changes to help in daily living. Fish nets were developed to help to catch fish that were hiding in the now muddy waters. There were no more horses because the land was now marshy, the horses migrated to the east. New skins were available in the antelopes. The saber-tooth-tigers were not around. So the initial curriculum of: firsh-grabbing-with-the-bare-hands, woolly-horse-clubbing, and saber-tooth-tiger-scaring with fire curriculum became obsolete.

There is always resistance to change. Even the "men who had the ability to do and daring to think" questioned the curriculum. These men questioned why new skills couldn't be taught in education. They wanted to new curriculum to be updated with the changing demands of their environment - net-making and operating, snare-setting, and pit-digging. There were some radicals who demanded explanations - when told why many radicals started believe why the curriculum can't change. They were told by the old men in educaion, "Because it would be mere training with all the intricate details of fish-grabbing, hore-clubbing, and tiger-scaring-the standard cultural subjects-the school curriculum is too crowded now. We can't add these fads and frills...." With more discussion - even the radicals believed it shouldn't be taught in education.

Why can't we forego the initial curriculum into the more relevant curriculum of the world. Then and now. We always seems, as in this article that it is in addition to what is currrently in the curriclum. Shouldn't we replace some archaic curriculum into more useful and 21st century relevant curriculm. We no longer have the same society that we once did when education started. We need the curriculum then and now to be relevant to the students and work-place ready. We need to "catch glimpses of ways in which life might be made better for himself, his family, and his group." (Change the pronoun his with our and it will be appropriate to use in todays environment.)

NJ Dept of Ed - Core Curriculum Standards

After having a difficult time trying to locate the site (I left off one c) I finally found it without getting an error message. I do find it helpful with a lot of information provided. It lists by grade level by subject the NJ State's core curriculum standards. I'm not sure it's a very effective site for the general community. However, if a child is homeschooled, it may assist the education provider by providing a skill set the student should be attaining by grade level.

The site provides links for educators. The links I accessed were helpful if your style of garnering information is by reading. If you're the type of person who likes charts, this site can be helpful also.

I'm not sure how the community or parents would use this site.

Change in Education

People are generally slow to change. Change take four to six years to implement. In Mark Fullan's key note address, "Large Scale Sustainable Reform" he mentions that the training alone takes seven to eight days per year over a three year period. If he takes this much time over a multi-years, the skills needed to implement change takes a long time. In one aspect of the training he discusses the importance of relationships and how it impacts change. I have heard many teachers say after professional development seminars, that when they get into their classrooms, they are going to do what they know works. In order for change to happen quicker with these teachers, they need to respect and trust the relationship of the leader who is recommending the change. Mark Fullan says, "Change is inevitable, accept it." Many people feel change is bad, I feel change keeps things interesting. Thing do not become stagnant with change. I embrace change, most times it's enjoyable and keeps things interesting.

Prensky Reaction

Wow. What an ambitious challenge. This looks like it was proposed in 2006, I wonder where he stands now. It would be interesting to see if parents/schools would volunteer students to participate in this challenge. Is Marc Prensky looking for only the brightest students? What about the learning disabled student? I realize everyone has various strengths - who is he really students at any grade level, at any level o f preparedness could respond to this challenge. I feel that perhaps he is right; however, I feel there would be success with a more mature student. looking for to participate?


I'm not sure it would work out, to cover everything in one semester that should be covered in two semesters is challenging in and of itself. However, I'm sure there would be a lot of streamlining and teaching the essential materials. I wonder if the students would be able to pass the state requirements in testing.


Another concern, not all experts could be good teachers. I realize there is an alternate route program for teachers, are these experts he is proposing to be with the students going to be trained at all in working with children. Children are not adults. They do have different styles.


Putting the responsibility of learning on the students is interesting. Marc Prensky feels that

First time blogger

I'm not sure what this is going to look like, but this is my first blog entry. I'll work on my class requirements after this. Mary