Subject: Fall 2010 in Review

Posted by Tim Joy on 12/22/2010

Message:

The holidays are here . . . time to look back and see what we we've talking about.

Since school opened, we have discussed 21 topics, down quite a bit from last year when we discussed 37 topics.

Big topics for the year, in order of postings:

Creativity
Innovation
Top Math Principles
Carrying Capacity

There were others, but they all pale in participation to these big four. There's really just one theme here: everyone is profoundly concerned about the state of instruction in schools - it is both poor and stifling. Certainly one of our recurring concerns is the extent to which what happens in schools is in some way connected to the world and the problems we must solve. Seems we need to bring experimentation and problem solving back into primacy.

Here's the top topics from last Fall:

Climate Change
Dynamo
Systems Makeover
Top 3 SD Books
Infections

There were 216 total posts from Sept 19 through Dec 16, compared to 266 in Fall '09.

What a year 2010 has been! Can we not all sense some urgency about teaching systems? What is the fulcrum we are hoping to lean on that lifts political and educational imagination from "teaching basics" and "high-stakes testing" to "teaching problem solving" and "high-stakes performance"?

Let's keep teaching and yearning for that great day when the common mode of explanation is a stock and flow diagram.

Rest, one and all. We'll need it in 2011!

Tim Joy

Follow Ups:

Fall 2010 in Review - Pedro D. Almaguer Prado 12/22/2010