You might not be able to take your students on field trips to all of the places that they learn about in your classroom, but thanks to the web you can take them on virtual trips to many neat places. Here are some of the virtual tours that I’ve explored over the years.
It seems like every week…
About Me
Random findings about books, libraries, education and whatever else looks cool.
Montclair High School Library
How to (over)achieve without ‘snapping’…
Ask Gayle is a weekly column in which New York Times bestselling author Gayle Forman answers fan questions about love, life, and everything in between! Submit a question anonymously via our Ask box. Today’s question is:
Just One Day’s Allyson is the first character that I have ever felt truly and deeply embodied myself. Like her, I think I’m an “AP automaton” in the making. How do I keep myself from snapping without giving up my GPA?
Somewhere in my brain I know that Allyson is fictional, but she feels real to me, and it makes me so happy that she feels real to you, too. So you’ll excuse me if I carry on talking about her as if she’s right here, drinking tea with us. “Would you like another cup, Allyson?”
Allyson’s problem was not that she was an AP automaton (which wasn’t even her description of herself; it was Melanie’s). It had nothing to with how well she did at school. Allyson’s problem was that was living a life determined by others, in her case by a well-meaning but controlling mother. She wasn’t getting As in high school because she was so transfixed by cellular biology or because she completely fell in love with Tolstoy. She was getting As because she had to get As in order to get into the right college so she could go to medical school and become a doctor. This was the life that was laid out for her. And it was a life that didn’t fit. Hence: snap.
I think there are a lot of well-meaning parents/teachers/guidance counselors out there who push teenagers incredibly hard with their best interests at heart. There’s a perception that the world is so competitive that if you make a wrong turn, if you don’t take all the right classes, or get all the best grades or score high enough on standardized tests and get into the best colleges, you are Screwed For Life. Nobody wants you to be Screwed For Life.
The thing is, I don’t think this is how life works. I know it’s competitive and the job market is tight, but I think if you see life as a race instead of a journey, you’re in for serious disappointment or drudgery, which will hamper your ability to do good work. Because if life is a race, it’s one without a finish line. Just when you think you’ve arrived, the line moves. This is particularly true for ambitious, type-A people, not that I know anything about those sorts (ahem).
I think the fact that you’re asking how not to snap is a good sign. It shows a self-awareness that will probably protect you from straying too far from a sort of authenticity, doing what feels true and good. I know, I know! It’s high school. You have to take trig, regardless of if it feels authentic. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find things (classes, clubs, activities) that nourish you, excite you, exhilarate you. When you tap into those things, the work might be hard, but it’s rewarding, because it’s about discovery. You don’t often hear about people snapping from too much discovery.
At the beginning of Just One Day, Allyson talks about memorizing a Shakespeare speech in high school. “I didn’t give it much thought. I just wanted to get the words right and collect my A.” Later on, in college, after she snaps and is trying to rebuild a more honest, meaningful life for herself, she takes a Shakespeare Out Loud class and discovers whole worlds of resonance in the Bard’s plays.
She gets an A in each class. But those grades mean entirely different things. And therein lies the answer.
Want to submit a question to Ask Gayle? Drop your question anonymously in our Ask box! Check out previous Ask Gayle columns here.
Find out more about Gayle on her website, follow her on Twitter and Tumblr, and become a fan of Just One Day and Just One Year on Facebook, where you can read a 13-chapter sample of JUST ONE DAY and see daily photos from Gayle’s travels around the world!
These are amazing but it kind of disturbs me that these beautifully illustrated books had to be destroyed to create them. What do you think?
(Source: unicorn-meat-is-too-mainstream, via yahighway)
Ever wish Kristin Cashore’s FIRE, GRACELING, and BITTERBLUE would get made into movies? Well, it really might happen—the rights have been sold! Get the full scoop in Variety.
We have all three books in our collection. Time to start reading!
As more classrooms fill up with technology, so increases the need for our students to truly understand the concept of Digital Footprint. There are quite a few great websites geared toward kids. Here are a few to explore with your students:
(via gjmueller)
“It’s a library, Marian. Libraries were created to democratize knowledge and make it public.”
“Around here, libraries were created so that Alcoholics Anonymous would have somewhere to meet when the Baptists kicked them out.”
“Marian, don’t be ridiculous. It’s just an archive.”
“Don’t think of me as a librarian. Think of me as a mad scientist; this is my secret laboratory.”
“Around here, libraries were created so that Alcoholics Anonymous would have somewhere to meet when the Baptists kicked them out.”
“Marian, don’t be ridiculous. It’s just an archive.”
“Don’t think of me as a librarian. Think of me as a mad scientist; this is my secret laboratory.”
“Beautiful Creatures” by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, page 166 (Nook edition).
Fact: libraries do serve communities beyond merely supplying books and periodicals.
Fact: all archivists are part mad scientist.
(via pandoramsbox)
(via kamigarcia)
Technology in Education: The Five Best Tools for Creating Videos Without Installing Software...
The Five Best Tools for Creating Videos Without Installing Software
Over the years I’ve published some lists and reviews of free tools for creating videos online. Quite a few of those tools have been for creating simple videos that are really just automated, audio…
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What you read is important, but not all important. How you read is the main consideration. For if you know how to read, there’s a world of education even in the newspapers, the magazines, on a single billboard or a stray advertising dodger.
The secret of good reading is this: read critically!
”(Source: , via yahighway)
The Diviners by Libba Bray
“Any librarian or scholar will tell you: Close is not the same as accurate.”
Dear Ladies & Gents:
It’s Wednesday. Go get bookishly fancy.
Always yours,
Team NOVLAlso, just in case you missed our fashion-related thoughts on the leading ladies of Libba Bray’s The Diviners:
Evie
Mabel
Theta
I just finished reading this book. If you love fantasy and the 1920s, check it out!
A curriculum crunch for California
In California, the curriculum standards and the new tests that go with them are supposed to be implemented in the 2014-15 school year.
That’s soon, and at the rate California is going, it won’t be ready. The core curriculum standards lay out extensive guidelines about the knowledge and skills that students should master in each grade of public school, in both reading and math. But there are many complicated steps involved in turning those guidelines into a day-to-day educational plan for California schools, and the state isn’t even close to halfway through them. It hasn’t figured out how to go about training teachers, and won’t begin to adopt new textbooks — a slow and politically rancorous process — for at least two years.
What’s more, common core is expensive, requiring extensive new training for teachers, new textbooks and computers on which the new tests must be taken. It’s unclear where the state will find the money.
image via flickr:CC | woodleywonderworks
