Peter Gow, Trying to Further Education and Educators

Archive for the NotYourFathersSchool Category

A Whole-Child Education for Every Child: The Grand Unifying Theory of Education

On March 17, 2014   /   Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Chris Thinnes, ideals, NotYourFathersSchool, schools, strategic directions, students, whole-child learning  

I am not a huge fan of posts that start with a number and proceed to a command: “83 Things You Must Do To Be The Teacher You Want to Be”; “Thirteen C’s Your School Can’t Survive Without.” In general I find these overwhelming, dispiriting, and ultimately […]

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Is the New SAT Worth Cheering About?

On March 14, 2014   /   ACT, college access, College Board, CWRA, David Coleman, founding documents, new SAT, NotYourFathersSchool, SAT writing test  

I want to believe that there are reasons to cheer on the new SAT as much as the next person, but I keep coming up with more questions than reasons to stand on my school roof and dance. I know that David Coleman, in all sincerity, sees […]

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Whatever Our Passions, There Is a Time to Be Still and Listen

On March 12, 2014   /   Advanced Placement, blogosphere, Deborah Meier, dyslexia, independent schools, NotYourFathersSchool, PLNs, school change, school missions, technology  

Every now and then I am overcome by guilt over my own role in this echo chamber of the blogosphere. I’m as guilty as the next guy of (un?-)helpfully providing lists of “11 Things Your School Has to Be Thinking About”; it’s a bit about arrogance (I’ll […]

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Umbridging: Outsourcing and the Threat to the Heart of Schools

On March 10, 2014   /   educational inequity, Global Online Academy, Harry Potter, Khan Academy, MOOCs, new SAT, NotYourFathersSchool, Online School for Girls, outsourcing, Powerful Learning Practice, umbridge  

The other day I wrote here about outsourcing, the tendency in schools these days to hand over responsibility for a myriad of institutional tasks to third-party vendors whose efficiencies and expertise ostensibly make it easier, and maybe cheaper, for schools to let someone else do it. In […]

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On Outsourcing: Lunch, the New SAT, and Why We Need Independent Curriculum

On March 6, 2014   /   AP, assessment, College Board, curriculum, food service, Independent Curriculum Group, independent schools, new SAT, NotYourFathersSchool, outsourcing, SAT, standardized testing  

When I was a child at my father’s school, the barber, the dry-cleaner, and the linen truck were the primary outside service providers. I remember the happy day Pop inked the contract with a food service company, in one gesture removing his most vexatious operational burden. Pretty […]

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Partnership, Community-Style: Schools in Their Proper Place

On March 1, 2014   /   Cape Cod Academy, Latin School of Chicago, NAISAC, National Network of Schools in Partnership, NotYourFathersSchool, Roland Park Country School, Washington International School  

Sometimes at conferences I find my mind wandering, heading off into little neural riffs and speculations triggered by something I’m listening to. Since there’s probably not going to be a quiz on the presentation, I guess this is allowed. Quite possibly this should be the point of […]

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Why Twitter Beats February

On February 21, 2014   /   assessment, curriculum, design thinking, EdCamp, educational technology, experiential learning, National Association of Independent Schools, NotYourFathersSchool, PLNs, schools, Twitter  
Why Twitter Beats February

It’s February, in case you hadn’t noticed. The weather, mercifully not snowing in Boston, at least, remains bleak and gray, the skies matching the snowbanks along the streets and sidewalks. Some vast percentage of the Lower 48 has experienced extremes of weather in the past month or […]

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Complementarity, Not Competition: A Birthday Wish

On February 19, 2014   /   Common Core, dyslexia, independent schools, NotYourFathersSchool, public schools, teacher evaluation  

The school vaguely alluded to in the name of this blog was indeed my father’s school, and before that it was his father’s school. Today my father would have been 90, an age that I suspect he is happy never to have attained, as his final mid-80s […]

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Getting Something Out of Snow Days (and not the way you think)

On February 13, 2014   /   learning, Mount Vernon Presbyterian School, NotYourFathersSchool, school closings, schools, snow days, students, summer reading  

The phone rang at 5:22 this morning, and she would have slept through it. But I answered and handed it to my spouse so that she could receive the news that she could go back to sleep. School was closed. This has been a common scenario this […]

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In Which I Confess to Lacking Grit, Apparently, and Blame It on Family

On February 2, 2014   /   Chris Lehman, disadvantaged students, grit, Ira Socol, Josie Holford, Laura Deisley, NotYourFathersSchool, persistence, school success, teaching  

The most exciting place I knew growing up was the “everyday” living room of my grandparents’ house. It was just across the street, so I could go there whenever I wanted.   The room also served as the main reading room of the “library” that was their house, […]

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF TRADITIONAL LANDS

I here affirm that the offices from which I work are situated on lands that have a very long and continuing history as a locus of residence, livelihood, traditional expression, and exchange by the Massachusett, Wampanoag, Abenaki, Mohawk, Wabanaki, Hohokam, O’odam, Salt River Pima, and Maricopa people. The servers for this website are situated on Ute and Goshute land. We make this acknowledgment to remind ourselves, our educational partners, and our friends of our shared obligation to acknowledge and work toward righting the inequities and injustices that have alienated indigenous peoples from the full occupation and utilization of these spaces.