The Fraser Institute, a Canadian public-policy think tank, has just released a study recommending something called “teacher incentive pay”, based on student achievement. The idea is, teachers would be paid bonuses based on high scores in their students’ standardized test results. This, they say, is key to Canada staying competitive on the world stage….
Tag: teaching
Let’s put some deeper education into Earth Day
Happy Litter-Picking Day! I say this with one part sincerity and one part facetiousness. Litter is the thing we all – especially those of us who work with kids – can easily dive into on Earth Day. It’s a nice, manageable, do-something-able topic. And don’t get me wrong, litter is a super-stupid phenomenon that drives…
6 Headlines You Won’t See at the Supermarket Checkout
In case you’re wondering, the title of this post is a bit ironic. If you hang around the Interwebs, you may have noticed that it’s real trendy or whatever to write articles and posts that start with a number. Somehow it makes the content more attractive and edible if you enumerate stuff. Far be it…
How Fine the Line
We had awful, awful news at our school last week. A five-year-old girl died after returning home from school one afternoon. One of our own kindergarten students. It’s like a punch in the gut, a slap in the face that makes you see stars, and makes the colours all weirdly bright. Suddenly danger is brilliantly…
Undulating Perspective II: Blurry?
Odd how my last post was about climbing ladders out of dark places… and then this week I’ve felt barely able to climb a very short ladder. I’ve just gone back and re-read a post from almost four years ago, in which I discussed how widely varied is my outlook on life, depending on several…
Dear Ontario Teachers
Dear colleagues, I know I haven’t written about what you’re going through in a long time, not since the post that unexpectedly deflowered my blog three months ago. I want you to know that it’s not because I’m ignoring what’s going on; I think about it every day. (Well – and I did have that…
Talking about anatomy with a preschooler
Sean and I have always used the scientific words for certain body parts when talking with E. There are reasons for this. For one thing, we both know that personally, we would feel like tools if we used words like winkie and hoo-ha or whatever. (This is why I never got the immensely popular “Once…
Is this what it’s like to be popular?
So, lovely Di-hards, how do you like the new look? Isn’t it pretty?? I’d like to declare a huge thank you to my big brother, Uncle Ben, a.k.a. Eupharos, for taking a nice theme by NodeThirtyThree and customizing the whole thing according to my inexperienced ideas. He’s got skillz. And he’s even going to help…
Those Greedy, Lazy Teachers
When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? When I was little, I wanted to be a ballerina. After that, I wanted to be a novelist. It didn’t occur to me to want to be a teacher until later. As a homeschooling kid, I didn’t even have teachers other…
What makes mothers?
It’s interesting, the things that kindergartners say about their mothers. I recently overheard a fragment of conversation at kindergarten snacktime, involving one of the kids I like to call “pop-up children” (teachers, you know the ones I’m talking about). This is what I heard: “…and then she punched me! In the face! My mom!” Wise…