Dangerously Irrelevant

Our middle school – arguably one of the state's finest – issues laminated punch cards to students at the beginning of each trimester. Each time a student needs to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom, visit her locker, etc., it costs one of the 12 punches.

Sorry, student, that it’s week 7 and you’re out of punches. No going to the bathroom for you.

Inhumane? Degrading? Illegal? What are your thoughts regarding this practice? Anyone else’s school doing this?

Oh, and did I mention that unused punches can be used for extra academic credit in some teachers’ classes?

Let’s say that you were interested in creating the world’s best PTA / PTO blog as a tool to help build greater community for your kids’ elementary school. What would you include in it?

You can see what I’ve come up with so far at the Fellows PTO Blog. I’m just getting started. In addition to fun and/or helpful online resources for students and parents, over the next few months I’m going to:

• solicit student stories or artwork,
• publicize upcoming school events,
• interview principals and the teaching staff,
• highlight great books (and hopefully have students submit book reviews), and
• possibly host a few fun contests for kids and families.

If you have other suggestions for blog activities, web sites I should be checking out, or great PTA / PTO blog examples, please leave them in the comments area or send me a note. Thanks!

Wow. That’s fun. Great writing, everyone!

Voting is open through Saturday, December 20, 5pm Eastern (USA; GMT -5). Check out the rest of the voting categories as well!

I believe pretty strongly that we should be removing restrictions on students’ access to the Internet in school as they get older. They’re going to live in an unfiltered world. I think they deserve the opportunity to learn how to navigate that complex information space under some adult guidance before we turn them loose after graduation. They don’t learn how to do that if we don’t give them access.

I had some pushback on that idea yesterday during a phone conversation with a school technology coordinator in another state. He basically said that he wasn’t buying my information libertarianism because most employers do some kind of content filtering for their adult employees. He was comfortable with his district’s current options for teachers to quickly request that particular web sites be unblocked.

What do you think? Do you agree with my stance that schools should be opening up the Internet to kids as they reach the upper grades? Or do you concur with the technology coordinator that schools don’t need to provide any more of an unfiltered environment than employers do?

I’ve been following with great interest Joseph
Pisano’s year-long quest to identify (or spark the creation of) 100 music
education blogs by January 2009  (I blogged about it back in
March). He has been diligently updating the list as it has grown throughout
the year. He’s up to 95
music education bloggers. If you know of anyone with a music education blog
who’s not on Joseph’s list (or who might be a good candidate to start one),
please send him or her his way. He’s got 30 days left and just 5 more blogs to
go!

I think this is a great project and would love to see similar efforts in
other subject areas. Joseph’s list already is on the Moving Forward wiki. If it
helps, I will be happy to help promote other initiatives like this one!