Greenhaus Education and Other "Effects"

I am sitting on my porch and trying to do some fine edits on my first 2 chapters of my dissertation proposal and start my third chapter.  Naturally, I am doing anything but that!  I was looking at my twitter feed ( @vpigreenie ) and saw this post from @iEducator about five careers that let you have fun on the job, of which teacher is the number one career for having fun.  As the article puts it: "Fun factors: According to the U.S. Department of Labor, teachers often "use games, music, artwork, films, books, computers, and other tools to teach basic skills." And because teachers are constantly around kids, it's more natural to be light-hearted than it might be in a workplace full of adults". Looking back on my 17 years in the classroom, I would agree that I definitely did have a lot of fun.  I was one of those teachers that used games, let my students work together and talk in class as we learned, and used the computers as much as possible. However - es...

(I cannot believe I haven't posted for a week! My goal of at least 2 posts a week, preferably more, seems to be getting more difficult, especially as my travel schedule picks up.  I will have to be more diligent.  The good thing about the travel though is I am out and about talking with teachers, teaching myself, and so getting some fodder for my posts.  This should get the creative juices going). I wanted to reflection on another talk from the Learning without Frontiers 2012 because I find them quite thought provoking, especially as I go back and re-listen to them.  (See my previous 2 reflections, "Technology Is Neutral" and Mobile Devices In Education ). The talk I want to focus on this post is from Francis Gilbert , a teacher in the UK. Francis gave a great talk called Escaping the Education Matrix , which I have posted below. I agree with all Francis' points, and, even though he was speaking from a UK perspective, I found what he said about assessment a...